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ON 



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LIB EET Y 



WORKS BY JOHN STUART MILL 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY. With Photogravure Portrait, 
from a Painting by G. F. Watts. Crown 8vo, 35. 6d. net. 

Popular Edition (without Portrait). Paper Covers, 
6d, 

LETTERS OF JOHN STUART MILL. Edited, 
with an Introduction, by Hugh S. R. Elliot. With 
a Note oil Mill's Private Life by Mary Taylor. 
With 6 Portraits. 2 Vols. 8vo, 21s, net. 

ON LIBERTY. Crown 8vo, is. 4^. 

CONSIDERATIONS ON REPRESENTATIVE 
GOVERNMENT Crown 8vo, 2s. 

UTILITARIANISM. 8vo, 2J. 6d, 

EXAMINATION OF SIR WILLIAM HAMIL- 
TON'S I'HILOSOPHY. 8vo, i6j. 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT ST. ANDREWS. 
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THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN. Edited, with 
Introductory Analysis, by Stanton Coit, Ph.D. 
Crown 8vo, 35. net. 

Popular Edition. Paper Covers, 6d. 

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
Popular Edition. Crown 8vo, 3J. 6d. 
New Edition. With an Introduction by W. J. Ashley, 
M.A., M.Com., Professor of Commerce in the Univer- 
sity of Birmingham, and an Index by Miss M. F. 
Ellis. Crown Svo, ^s. 

A SYSTEM OF LOGIC. Crown 8vo, 3^.6^. 



HANDBOOK TO MILL'S SYSTEM OF LOGIC. 
By Rev. A. H. Killick, M.A. Crown 8vo, 3^. dd. 



LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 

LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 



ON 



LIBERTY 



BY 



JOHN STUAKT MILL 

I 



PEOPLE'S EDITION 



NBW IMPBXSSIOM 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO, 

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 

1913 

All rights reserved 



i- 









THE NEW YORK 

PDBUC UBRARY 

TILDBN FOUNDATIONS 
R 1932 L 



< • 






* r 



• • • 



« 9 






J 



( 



rnO the beioYed and deplored memory of ner who was the 
! inspirer, and in part the author, of all that is best in my 
prritings — the friend and wife whose exalted sense oi truth 
id right was my strongest incitement, and whose approbation 
ras my chief leward — I dedicate this volume. like all that 1 
lave ^tten for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me ; 
^t the work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, 
16 inestimable advantage of her revision ; some of the most 
iportant portions having been reserved for a more careful re- 
tmination, which they are now never destined to receive, 
^ere I but capable of interpreting to the world one half the 
kt thooghts and noble feelings which are buried in hei grave, 
(should be the medium of a greater benefit to it, than is ever 
cely to arise from anything that I can write, unprompted and 
l^ her all but unrivalled wisdom. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAFl'EB L 

fA9B 

IVTBODUOTOBT I 

CHAPTEB IL 

OP THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION . . . » 9 



j OHAPTER 111. 

I 

OP INDIVIDUALITT, AS ORE OF THE ELEMENTS OP WELL-BEING . 89 



. CHAPrER IV. 

OF THE LIMITS TO TUR AUTHORITY Ot SOCIETY OTIB THE 

INDIYIDUAL 44 

[ CHAPTEB V. 

j. 

i 4PPLI0ATI0MS t «... 65 

I 



ON LIBERTY. 



CHAPTER L 



IHTBODUOTOBT. 



The fubject of i^in Essay is not the 
K-caUed Liberty of the Will, so un- 
fortunately opposed to the misnamed 
doctrine of rnilosophioal Necessity; 
kut Civil, or Social Liberty : the nature 
•nd limits of the power which can be 
legitimately exercised by society over 
the individuaL A question seldom 
•tated, and hardly ever discussed, in 
general terms, but which profoundly 
Maeiices the practical controversies of 
'\q age by its latent presence, and is 
kely soon to make itself recognised as 
e vital question of the future. It is 
fiEur from being new, that^ in a cer- 
sense, it has divided mankind, 
most from the remotest ages ; but in 
e stage of progress into which the 
re civilized portions of the species 
ve now entered, it presents itself im- 
r new conditions, and requires a diffe- 
iit and more fundamental treatment. 
The struggle between Liberty and 
uthorit^ IS the most conspicuous 
ature in the portions of history with 
hich we are earliest familiar, particu- 
rly in that of Greece, Rome, and 
ngland: But in old times this con- 
st was between subjects, or some 
asses of subjects, and the Qovem- 
ent. By liberty, wts meant protec- 
on against the tyranny of the political 
ders. The rulers were conceived 
xcept in some of the popular govem- 
ents of Greece) as in a necessarily 
itagonistic position to the people 
mom they nued. They consisted of 
igoverning One, or a governing tribe 
\ caste, who derived their authority 
Dm inheritance or conquest, who, at 
i events, did not hold it at the 
^asnre of the governed, and whoM 



supremacy men did not venture, pel 
haps did not desire, to contest, what 
ever precautions might be taken 
against its oppressive exercise. Their 
power was regarded as necessary, but 
also as highly dangerous ; as a weapon 
which they would attempt to use 
against their subjects, no less than 
against external enemies. To prevent 
the weaker members of the commimity 
from being preyed upon by innumerable 
vultures, it was needful that there should 
be an animal of prey stronger than 
the rest, commissioned to keep them 
down. But as the king of the vultures 
would be no less bent upon preying on 
the flock than any of the minor har- 
pies, it was indispensable to be in a 
perpetual attitude of defence against 
nis oeak and claws. The aim, there- 
fore, of patriots was to set limits to the 
power which the ruler should be su£> 
fered to exercise over the commimity ; 
and this limitation was what they 
meant by libertv. It was attempted 
in two ways. Firstj by obtaining a 
recognition of certain immunities, called 
political liberties or rights, which it 
was to be regarded as a oreach of dutpr 
in the ruler to infriuj^e, and which if 
he did infringe, specihc resistance, or 
general rebellion, was held to be justifi- 
able. A second, and genentUy a latei 
expedient, was the establishment oi 
constitutional checks, by which the 
consent of the community, or of a body 
of some sort, supposed to represent its 
interests, was made a necessary con 
dition to some of the more important 
acts of the governing power. To the 
first of these modes of limitatiow^ vl^s^ 
ruling po^ret, 'va. in!(MX ^>m«^w^ <»w» 



INTRODUCTORY. 



tries, was compelled, more or less, to 
submit. It was not so with tlie second ; 
and, to attain this, or when already in 
some degree possessed, to attam it 
more completely, became everywhere 
the principal object of the lorers of 
Uberty. And so long as mankind were 
content to combat one enemy by 
another, and to be ruled by a master, 
on condition of being ^aranteed more 
or less efficaciously agamst his tyranny, 
they did not carry their aspirations be- 
f ond this point. 

A time, however, came, in the pro- 
gress of human affairs, when men 
ceased to think it a necessity of nature 
that their governors should be an in- 
kpendent power, opposed in interest 
to themselves. It appeared to them 
much better that the various magis- 
trates of the State should be their 
tenants or delegates, revocable at their 
pleasure. In that way alone, it seemed, 
could they have complete security that 
the powers of government would never 
be aoused to . theipt. disadvantage. By 
degrees this neW'^-ltomand for elective 
And temporaiy rulers became the 
prominent olgoot of the exertions of 
the popular parfy, wherever any such 
party existed; and superseded, to a 
considerable extent, the previous efforts 
to limit the power of rulers. As the 
struggle proceeded for making the 
ruling power emanate from the 
periodical choice of the ruled, some 
persons began to think that too much 
miportance had been attached to the 
limitation of the power itself. That 
(it might seem) was a resource against 
rulers whose interests were habitually 
opposed to those of the people. What 
was now wanted was, that the rulers 
should be identified with the people ; 
that their interest and will should be 
the interest and will of the nation. 
The nation did not need to be protected 
against its own will. There was no 
fear of its tyrannizing over itself. Let 
the rulers be efifectually responsible to 
it, promptly removable by it, and it 
Doufd afitord to trust them with power 
•f which it could itself dictate the use 
lo be made. Their power was but the 
nation's own power, concentrated, and 
ia 9 form convenient for ezerois* 



This mode of thought, or rather pei 
haps of feeling, was common amonj 
the last generation of Europeai 
liboralism, in the Continental sectioi 
of which it still apparently predomi 
nates. Those who admit any limit t 
what a government may do, except ii 
the case of such governments as the, 
think ought not to exist, stand out a 
brilliant exceptions among the politica 
thinkers of the Continent. A simila 
tone of sentiment might by this tira 
have been prevalent in our owi 
co7mtry, if tne circumstances whicl 
for a time encouraged jt, had continues 
unaltered. 

But, in pcditical and philosophica 
theories, as weU as in persons, succe&i 
discloses faults and infirmities whicl 
failure might have concealed from oh 
servation. The notion, that the people 
have no need to limit their power ove 
themselves, might seem axiomatic 
when popular government was a thinj 
only dreamed about, or read of ai 
having existed at some distant perio( 
of the past. Neither was that notioi 
necessarily disturbed by such ten^ 
porary aberrations as those of tl^ 
French Revolution, the worst of whi(J 
were the work of an usurping few, ar^ 
which, in any case, belonged, not I 
the permanent working of popular i^ 
stitutions, but to a sudden and cof 
vulsive outbreak against monarchic^ 
and aristocratic despotism. In timl 
however, a democratic republic canj 
to occupy a large portion of the earth 
surface, and made itself felt as one ( 
the most powerful members of the con 
munity of nations ; and elective an 
responsible government became sn 
ject to the observations and criticisii 
which wait upon % great existing fac 
It was now perceived that such pliras 
as ' self-government,' and ' the pow( 
of the people over themselves,' do n- 
express the true state of the cas 
The * people' who exercise the pow 
are not always the same people wiF 
those over whom it is exercised ; a 
the ' self-government' spoken of is 
the government of each by hims 
but of each by all the rest. The ' 
of the people, moreover, practicj 
means the will of the most numer 



INTEODUCTORY. 



8 



', at tlie moBt active part of the people ; 
H Uie majority, or those who succeed in 

> making themselves accepted as the 
I majority; the people, oonsequently, 
may demn to oppress a part of their 
nomher ; and precautions are as much 
needed against this as against any 
other abuse of power. The limitation, 
therefore, of the power of government 
Ofer individuals loses none of its im- 
portance when the holders of power 
«re regularly accountable to the com- 
munity, that is, to the strongest party 
therein. This view of things, rccom- 
jnendini^ itself equally to the intelli- 
genoe of thinkers and to the inclination 
of those important classes in European 
■ociety to whose real or supposed in- 
terests democracy is adverse, has had 
00 difficulty in establishing itself; and 
in political speculations * the tyranny 
of the minority* is now generally in- 
ohided asnong the evils against which 
•woiety requires to be on its guard. 

> Lflce >ther tyrannies, the tyranny of 
^Ae migority was at first, and is still 
imlgarly, held in dread, ohieOy as ope- 
■Hating through the acts of the public 
^huthorities. But reflecting persons 
'^percetved that when society is itself 
'•the tyrant — society collectively, over 

Ike separate individuals who compose 
^Ib^itb -neans of tyrannizing are not 
^'listrictiid to the acts which it may do 
^ kj^ the hands of its political fimction- 

> iiiea. Society can and does execute 
>ili own mandates: and if it issues 
1 im>Dg mandates instead of right, or 
tejr mandates at all in things with 
■^Vmch it ought not to meddle, it prac- 
^^tlies a social tyranny more formidable 

> t|an many kinds of political oppres- 
^:4)n, since, though not usually upneld 
"ky such extreme penalties, it leaves 

er means of escape, penetrating 

ch more deeply into the details of 

e, and enslaving the soul itself. Pro- 

ction, therefore, against the tyranny 

the magistrate is not enough : there 

eds pnitection also against the ty- 

nuyof the prevailing opinion and feel- 

\gi against the tendency of society to 

pose, by other means than civil penal- 

'.s, its own ideas and practices as rules 

conduct on those who dissent from 

em ; to fetter the development, and, if 



,\ 



possible, prevent the formation, of anj 
mdividuality not in harmony with its 
ways, and compels all characters to f» 
shion themselves upon the model of itt 
own. There is a limit to the legitimate 
interference of collective opinion witk 
individual independence: and to find 
that limit, and maintain it against en 
croachment, is as indispensable to a 
good condition of human affairs, as pro 
tection against political despotism. 

But though this proposition is not 
likely to be contestea in general terms, 
the practical question, where to place 
the limit — how to make the fitting 
acyustment between individual inde- 
pendence and social control — is a sub- 
ject on which nearly everything re- 
mains to be done. All tnat makes 
existence valualle to any one, depends 
on the enforcement of restraints upon 
the actions of other people. Some 
rules of conduct, therefore, must be im- 
posed, by law in the first place, and 
oy opinion on manv things which are 
not tit subjects for the operation of law. 
What these rules should be, is the prin- 
cipal question in human affairs ; but ii 
we except a few of the most obvious 
cases, it is one of those which least 
progress has been made in resolving. 
No two ases, and scarcelv any two 
countries, have decided it alike ; and 
the decision of one age or country is a 
wonder to another, i et the people of 
any given age and country no more 
suspect an^ difficultv in it, than if it 
were a subject on which mankind had 
always been agreed. The rules which 
obtain amon^ themselves appear to 
them self-evident and selt-justifying. 
This all but universal illusion is one of 
the examples of the magical influence 
of custom, which is not only, as the 
proverb says, a second nature, but is 
continually mistaken for the first. The 
effect of custom, in preventing any 
misgiving respecting the rules of con- 
duct which mankind impose on one 
another, is all the more complete be- 
cause the subject is one on wiiich it is 
not generally considered necessary thai 
reasons should be given, either by one 

?3rson to others, or by each to himself, 
eople are accustomed to believe, and 
Iv^ve been encoura%<>^m\2si^\3^<i&^^ 



INTRODUCTORY 



■omo who aspire to the character of 
philosopliers, that their feelings, on 
suhjccts of this nature, are hotter than 
reasons, and render reasons unneces- 
sary. The practical principle which 
guides them to their opinions on the 
regulation of human conduct, is the 
feeling in each person's mind that 
everyhody should he required to act as 
he, and those with whom he sympa- 
thizes, would like them to act. No 
one, indeed, acknowledges to himself 
that his standard of judgment is his 
own liking ; hut an opinion on a point 
of conduct, not supported hy reasons, 
can only count as one person's pre- 
ference ; and if the reasons, when given, 
are a mere appeal to a similar prefer- 
ence felt hy other people, it is still only 
many people's liking instead of one. 
To an ordinary man, however, his own 
preference, thus supported, is not only 
a perfectly satisfactory reason, hut the 
only one ne generally nas for any of his 
notions of morality, taste, or pi*opriety, 
which are not expressly written in his 
religious creed ; and his ch'ef guide in 
the interpretation even of' 1 hat. Men's 
opinions, accordingly, on what is laud- 
aole or hlameable, are affected by all 
the multifarious causes which influence 
their wishes in regard to the conduct 
f f others. an<) .vhich are as numerous 
AS thosb wbich determine their wishes 
on any other subject. Sometimes their 
reason — at other times their prejudices 
or superstitions: often their social af- 
fections, not seldom their antisocial 
ones, their envy or jealousy, their arro- 
gance or contemptuousness : but most 
commonly, their desires or fears for 
themselves — their legitimate or illegi- 
timate self-interest. Wherever there 
is an ascendant class, a large portion 
of the morality of the country emanates 
from its class interests, and 'Its feelings 
of class superiority. The \tiorality ^ 
tween Spartans and Helotu, between 
planters and negroes, between princes 
and subjects, between nobles and rotu- 
riers, between men and women, has 
been for the most part the creation of 
these class interests and feelings : and 
the sentiments thus generated, react in 
turn upon the moral feelings of the mera- 
ban or the Asoendant class, in their rela- 



tions among themselves. Where, on th 
other hand, a class, formerly ascendant 
has lost its ascopdancy, or whcr6 iti 
ascendancy is unpopular, the prevailing 
moral sentiments frequently bear th 
impress of an impatient dislike of s 
periority. Another grand determininj 
principle of the rules of conduct, bo 
in act and forbearance, which ha 
been enforced by law or opinion, h 
been the servility of mankind towar 
the supposed preferences or aversio 
of their temporal masters or of the 
gods. This servility, though essential' 
selfish, is not h3mocrisy; it gives ri 
to perfectlv genuine sentiments of a 
hon-ence ; it made men bum magiciai 
and heretics. Among so many basi 
influences, the general and obvious i 
terests of society have of course had 
share, and a large one, in the directi 
of the moral sentiments : less, howev 
as a matter of reason, and on their o 
account, than as a consequence of t 
sympathies and antipathies which g 
out of them : and sympathies and an 
pathies which had little or nothing to 
with the interests of society, have ma 
themselves felt in the establishment 
moralities with quite as great force. 
The likings and dislikings of nooie 
or of some powerful portion of it, 
thus the mam thing which has pra 
cally determined the rules laid do 
for ^neral observance, under the 
nalties of law or opinion. And in ge 
ral, those who have been in advance 
society in thought and feeling, ha 
left this condition of things unassail 
in principle, however they may ha 
come into conflict with it in some of 
details. They have occupied the 
selves rather m inquiring what thin 
society ought to like or dislike, than 
(questioning whether its likings or d 
likings should be a law to individua 
They preferred endeavouring to &\tfe 
the feelings of mankind on the parLit 
cular points on which they were tlief 
selves neretical, rather than make cot h 
mon cause in defence of freedom, www 
heretics generally. The only case mi 
which the higher ground nas bel f 
taken on principle and maintained w'ke 
consistency, by any but an individ^c 
here and were, is that of religious 9tt 



iJef : a cMe inrtmctiTe in many ways, 
land not least bo as forming a most 
IJitriking instance of the fallibility of 
^hat is called the moral sense : for the 
ii$dium theologieumj in a sincere bigot, 
ok one of the most nneqnivocal cases of 
iiDoral feeling. Those who first broke 
iidie yoke of what called itself the Uni- 
tversal Chnrch, were in general as little 
I willing to permit difference of religious 
ispinion as that chnrch itself. But 
cvjicn the heat of the conflict was oyer, 
i'Witliout giving a complete yictory to 
\mv party, anaeach church or sect was 
jnauced to limit its hopes to retaining 
k^OBsession of the ground it already oc- 
sinpied; minorities, seeing that they 
hU no chance of becoming minorities, 
k were under the necessity of pleading to 
lidioee whom they could not conyert, for 
cfemrission to differ. It is accordingly 
eJB this battle field, almost solely, that 

S» ngbts of the individual agamst so- 
ety have been asserted on broad 
^proatidft of principle, and the claim of 
pMieiy ix exercise authority over dis- 
tiento, openly controverted. The 
a( writers to whom the world owes 
hd\ i»ligious liberty it possesses, have 
tsUv asserted freedom of conscience 
ifi indefeasible right, and denied 
lotely that a human being is ac- 
ible to others for his religious 
dlief. Tet so natural to m^kind is 
)lerance in whatever they really care 
>ut, that religious freedom has 
krdly anywhere been practically rea- 
Eed, except where religious indiffe- 
mce, whicli dislikes to have its peace 
isturbed by theological quarrels, has 
Ided its weight to the scale. In the 
' ids of almost all religious persons, 
m in the most tolerant countries, the 
ity of toleration is admitted with tacit 
iserves. One person will bear with 
Issent in matters of church govern- 
ment, but not of dogma ; another can 
>lerate everybody, short of a Papist 
an Unitarian; another, every one 
^ho believes in revealed religion ; a 
^w extend their charity a little further, 
it stop at the belief in a God and in 
future state. Wherever the senti- 
lent of the majority is still genuine 
id intense, it is found to have abated 
Ittle of Ub daim to be obeyed. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



In England, from the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of our political history, 
though the yoke of opinion is perhap* 
heavier, that of law is lighter, than n. 
most other countries of Europe; and 
there is considerable jealousy of direct 
interference, by the legislative or the 
executive power, with private conduct ; 
not so much from any just regard for 
the independence of the individual, as 
from the still subsisting habit of look- 
ing on the government as representing 
an opposite interest to tne public. 
The majority have not yet learnt to 
feel the power of the government their 
power, or its opinions their opinions. 
When they do so, individual liberty 
will probably be as much exposed to 
invasion from the government, as k- 
already is from public opinion. Bifi^ 
as yet, there is a considerable amount 
of feeling ready to be called forth 
against any attempt of the law to con- 
trol individuals in things in which they 
have not hitherto been accustomed to 
be controlled by it ; and this with very 
little discrimination as to whether the 
matter is, or is not, within the legiti* 
mate sphere of legal control; inso- 
much tnat the feeling, highly salutary 
on the whole, is perhaps quite as often 
misplaced as well grounded in the par- 
ticular instences of its application. 
There is, in fact, no recognised prin- 
ciple by which the pi-opriety or 
impropriety of government interference 
is customarily tested. People decide 
according to their personal preferences. 
Sor>e, whenever they see any good to 
be done, or evil to be remedied, would 
willingly instigate the government te 
undertake the business ; while others 
prefer to bear almost any amount of 
social evil, rather than add one to the 
departmento of human interests amen- 
able to govenunental control. And 
men range themselves on one or the 
other side in any particular case, ac- 
cording to this general direction of 
their sentiments ; or according to the 
degree of interest which they feel ii 
the particular thing which it is pro* 
posed that the government should do, 
or according to the belief they enter 
tain that the government would, o 
would not, do it ilk tba \£kassD£st >2dcv^ 



INTRODUCTORY 



prefer ; Irat yeiy rarely on account of 
any opinion to which they consistently 
«dhere, as to what things are fit to be 
done by a government. And it seems 
to me that in consequence of this 
absence of rule or principle, one side is 
at present as often wrong as the other; 
(he interference of government is, with 
about equal frequency, improperly in- 
voked and improperly condemned. 

The object of this Essay is to assert 
one very simple principle, as entitled 
to govern absolutelv ine dealings of 
society with the individual in the wary 
of compulsion and control, whether the 
means used be physical force in the 
form of legal penalties, or the moral 
coercion of public opinion. That prin- 
ciple is, that the sole end for which 
mankind are warranted, individually 
or collectively, in interfering with the 
liberty of action of anv of their number, 
is self-protection. That the only pur- 
pose for which power can be rightrally 
exercised over any member of a 
civilized community, against his will, 
is to prevent harm to otners. His own 
good, either physical or moral, is not a 
sufficient warrant. He cannot right- 
fully be compelled to do or forbear be- 
cause it will be better for him to do so, 
because it will make him happier, be- 
cause, in the opinions of others, to do 
so would be wise, or even right. Tliese 
are good reasons for remonstrating 
with nim, or reasonmg with him, or 
persuading him, or entreating him, but 
not for compelling him, or visiting him 
with any evil in case he do otherwise. 
To justify that, the conduct from which 
it is desired to deter him, must be calcu- 
lated to produce evil to some one else. 
The only part of the conduct of any 
one, for which he is amenable to 
society, is that which concerns others. 
In the part which merely concerns 
himself, nis independence is, of right, 
absolute. Over himself, over his own 
body and mind, the individual is sove- 
reign. 

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to 
say that tliis doctrine is meant to apply 
only to human beings in the maturity 
of their faculties. We are not speak- 
ing of children, or of young persons 
beMw the age which the law may fix 



as that of manhood or woma 
Those who are still in a stat( 
quire being taken care of by ' 
must be protected against tne 
actions as well as against external 
For the same reason, we may Ie£ 
of consideration those backward 
of society in which the race itse 
be considered as in its nonage, 
early difficulties in the way of t 
neous progress are so great, thai 
is seldom any choice of means fo 
coming them ; and a ruler full 
spirit of improvement is warrai 
the use of any expedients thi 
attain an end, perhaps othcrwi 
attainable. Despotism is a Icgi 
mode of government in dealing 
barbarians, provided the end b 
improvement, and the means ju 
by actually effecting that end. L 
as a principle, has no applicat 
any state of things anterior to tl 
when mankind have become cap 
bein^ improved by free and e(]u 
cussion. Until then, there is n 
for them but implicit obedienc< 
Akbar or a Charlema^e, if th 
so fortunate as to find one. 1 
soon as mankind have attain ( 
capacity of being guided to the 
improvem^t by conviction or j 
sion (a period long since reachfv: 
nations with whom we need here c 
ourselves), compulsion, either i 
direct form or in that of pain 
penalties for non-compliance, 
longer admissible as a means t 
own ^ood, and justifiable only f 
secunty of others. 

It is proper to state that I 
any advantage which could bo c 
to my argument from the ic 
abstract right, as a thing indep 
of utility. I regard utility s 
ultimate appeal on all ethical 
tions; but it must be utility 
largest sense, gi'ounded on the ] 
nent interests of a man as a p 
sive being. Those interests, I cc 
authorize the subjection of ind: 
spontaneity to external control, ( 
respect to those actions of each, 
concern the interest of other ] 
If any one does an act hurl 
others, there is a primct facie c 



INTRODaCTORY. 



[ faniBhing him, by law, or, where legal 
i:|eiialtie6 are not safely applicable, oy 
f fenenJ disapprobation. There are 
I iUo many positive acts for the benefit 
p of others, which he may rightfully be 
( •ompelled to perform ; such as to give 
. evidence in a court of justice ; to bear 
his fair share in the common defence, 
or in any other joint work necessarr 
to the interest of the society of which 
. he enjoys the protection ; and to per- 
. fonn certain acts of individual benefi- 
cence, such as saving a fellow-creature *s 
life, or interposing to protect the defence- 
, less against ill-usage, things which 
[ whenever it is obviously a man's duly 
[ to do, he may rightfully be made re- 
; sponsible to society for not doing. A 
, person may cause evil to others not 
I only by his actions but by his inaction, 
; and in either case he is justly account- 
\ able to them for the injury. The 
I litter case, it is true, requires a much 
Bore cautious exercise of compulsion 
[than the former. To make any one 
.••niwerable for doiug evil to others, is 
] the rule ; to ma'ke him answerable for 
^»iot preventing evil, is, compcLratively 
I speaking, the exception. let there 
ii|re many cases clear enough and 
^ crave enough to justify that exception. 
iuln all things which regard the exter- 
iiial relations of the individual, he is 
^d$jure amenable to those whose inte- 
j mis are concerned, and if need be, to 
} society as their protector. There are 
often good reasons for not holding him 
to the responsibility; but these rea- 
ns must arise from the special expe- 
iencies of the case : either because it 
s a kind of case in which he is on the 
'hole likely to act better, when left to 
is own discretion, than when con- 
trolled in any way in which society 
have it in their power to control him ; 
j'tn* because the attempt to exercise 
tifcontrol would produce other evils, 
ogreater than those which it would pre- 
;«yent. When such reasons as these 
nfreclnde t^e enforcement of responsi- 
uPility, the conscience of the agent 
r 'himself should step into the vacant 
,i(,udgment seat, and protect those inte- 
ppests of others which have no external 
protection; judging himself all the 
finore rigidly, becauso the case does 



not admit of his being made account* 
able to the judgment of his fellow- 
creatures. 

But there is a sphere of action in 
which society, as oistinguished from 
the individual, has, if any, only an in- 
direct interest ; comprehending all that 
portion of a person^ life and conduct 
which affects only himself, or if it also 
affects others, only with their free, 
voluntary, and undeceived consent and 
participation When I say only him- 
self, I mean directly, and m the first 
instance : for whatever affects himself, 
may affect others through himself; 
and the objection which may be 
grounded on this contingency, will re- 
ceive consideration in the sequel. This, 
then, is the appropriate region of hu- 
man liberty, it comprises, first, the 
inward domain of consciousness ; de- 
manding liberty of conscience, in the 
most comprehensive sense; liberty of 
thought and feeling ; absolute freedom 
of opinion and sentiment on all sub- 
jects, practical or speculative, scientific, 
moral, or theological. The liberty of 
expressing and publishing opinions may 
seem to fall unaer a different principle, 
since it belongs to that part or the con- 
duct of an individual which concemi 
other people ; but, bein^ almost of as 
much importance as the liberty cf 
thought itself, and resting in ^at 
part on the same reasons, is practically 
mseparable from it. Secondly, the 
principle requires liberty of tastes and 
pursuits ; of framing the plan of oar 
life to suit our own chai-acter ; of doing 
as we like, subject to such consequences 
as may follow : without impediment from 
our fellow-creatures, so long as what we 
do does not harm them, even though 
they should think our conduct foolisn, 
perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this 
liberty of each individual, follows the 
liberty, within the same limits, of com- 
bination among individuals; freedom 
to unite, for any purpose not involving 
harm to others : the persons combining 
being supposed to be of full age, and 
not forced or deceived. 

No society in which these liberties 
are not, on the whole, respected, is free, 
whatever may be its form of govern 
ment ; and none is completely free in 



8 



INTRODUCTORY. 



which they do not exist absolute and 
nnqaalified. The only freedom which 
deserves the name, is that of pursuing 
our own good in our own wa^, so long 
AS we do not attempt to depnve others 
of theirs, or impede their efforts to ob- 
tain it. Each IS the proper guardian 
of his own health, whether bodily, or 
mental and spiritual. Mankind are 
greater gainers by suffering each other 
to live as seems good to themselves, 
than by compelling each to live as 
teems good to the rest. 

Though this doctrine is anything but 
new, and, to some nersons, may have 
the air of a truism, there is no doctrine 
which stands more directly opposed to 
the general tendency of existing opinion 
and practice. Society has expended 
fully as much effort in the attempt (ao- 
tording to ite lights) to compel pecple 
k) conform to its notions of personal, 
M of social excellence. The ancient 
commonwealths thought themselves 
entitled to practise, and the ancient 
philosophers countenanced, the regula- 
tion of every part of private conduct 
by public authority, on the ground that 
the State had a deep interest in the 
whole bodily and mental discipline of 
every one of its citizens ; a mode of 
thinking which may have been admis- 
sible in small republics surrounded by 
powerful enemies, in constant peril of 
Doing subverted by foreign attack or 
internal commotion, and to which even 
a short interval of relaxed energy and 
self-command might so easily be fatal, 
that they could not afford to wait for 
the salutery permanent effecte of free- 
dom. In the modem world, the creator 
size of political communities, and above 
%11, the separation between spiritual 
•nd temporal authority (which placed 
the direction of men's consciences in 
other hands than those which con- 
trolled their worldly affairs), prevented 
so great an interference by law in the 
deteils of private life ; but the engines 
of moral repression have been wielded 
more strenuously against divergence 
from the reigning opinion in self- 
regarding, than even in social matters ; 
religion, the most powerful of the ele- 
ments which have entered into the 
hnnaiion of moral feeling, having al- 



most always been governed eltlier bj 
the ambition of a hierarchy, seekin] 
control over every department of hi 
man conduct, or by the spirit of Pui 
tanism And some of those modei 
reformers who have placed themseb 
in strongest opposition to the religioDJ 
of the past, have been noway behim 
either cnurches or secte in their asset 
tion of the right of spiritual domini 
tion : M. Comte, in particular, whoi 
social system, as unfolded in his System 
de Politique Positive, aims at establisl 
ing (though by moral more than by legs 
appliances) a despotism of society ove 
the individual, surpassing anythini 
contemplated in the political ideal a 
the most ridld disciplinarian among th^ 
ancient philosophers. 

^ Apart from the peculiar tenets of ii 
dividual thinkers, there is also in tl 
world at large an increasing inclinati( 
to stretoh unduly the powers of sociel 
over the individual, b^th by the foi 
of opinion and even by that of legii 
lation ; and as the tendency of all thj 
changes teking place in the world is 
strengthen society, and diminish th 
power of the individual, this encroacl 
ment is not one of the evils which ten! 
spontaneously to disappear, but, ^ 
the contrary, to grow more and moi 
formidable. The disposition of mai 
kind, whether as rulers or as fclloi 
citizens, to impose their own opinio; 
and inclinations as a rule of condi 
on others, is so energetically supporl 
by some of the best and by some of tl 
worst feelings incident tc human in 
ture, that it is hardly ever kept iindt 
restraint by anything but want <. 
power ; and as the power is not di 
dining, but growing, unless a stroni 
barrier of moral conviction can be raise! 
against the mischief, we must expecf 
in the present circumstances of tl 
world, to see it increase. 

It will be convenient for the ar^i 
ment, if, instead of at once entenn[ 
upon the general thesis, we confinf 
ourselves in the first instance to a singly 
branch of it, on which the principlj 
here stated is, if not fully, yet to a cer] 
tein point, reco^ised by the curreni 
opinions. This one branch is th( 
liberty of Thought: from which it i^ 



or THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHl' AND DISCUSSION. 



•ossible to separate the cognate li- 
^y of speakioe and of writing. Al- 
dgh these libertieB, to some con- 
rable amount, fonn part of the 
tical morality of all countries which 
ess religious toleration and free in- 
utions, the grounds, both philoso- 
)b1 and practical, on whicn they 
, are perhaps not so familiar to the 
Bral mind, nor so thoroughly appro- 
ed by many even of the leaders of 
lion, as might haye been expected. 



Those grounds, when rightly under- 
stood, are of much wider application 
than to only one division oi the sub- 
ject, and a thorough consideration of 
this part of the question will be found 
toe best introduction to the remainder. 
Those to whom nothing which I am 
about to say will be new, may there- 
fore, I hope, excuse me, if on a subject 
which for now three centuries has been 
so often discussed, 1 venture on one. 
discussion more. 



CHAPTEBIL 



OF THE UBERTT OF THOUGHT AND DIBOUSSIO*. 



I thne, it is to be hoped, is gone by, 
n any defence would be necessary 
he ' Uberty of the press ' as one of 
seotlrities against corrupt or tyran- 
1 goyemment. No ai^ument, we 
suppose, can now be needed, 
nst permitting a legislature or an 
iutiye, not identified in interest 
I the people, to prescribe opinions 
lem, and determine what doctrines 
vhat arguments they shall be al- 
)d to hear. This aspect of the 
ition, besides, has been so often and 
lumphantly enforced by preceding 
ers, that it needs not be specially 
(ted on in this place. Though the 
of England, on the subject of the 
B, is as servile to this day as it was 
le time of the Tudors, there is little 
^r of its bein^ actually put in force 
nst political discussion, except dur- 
some temporary panic, when fear 
nsnrrection drives ministers and 
es from their propriety;* and, 

rhese words bad scarcely been written, 
I, as if to give ihem an emphatic con- 
ction, occurred the GoTemment Press 
^cations of 1858. That ill-judged inter- 
ice with the liberty of public discussion 
Dot, however, induced me to alter a 
B word in the text, nor haa it at all 
ened my conviction that, moments of 
', excepted, the era of pains and penalties 
|)ollti<»l discussion has, in our own 
try, passed away. For, in the first 
, the piyraecutions were not persisted 
iB4 in the aecfModt Uraj were never, 



speaking generally, it is not, in con- 
stitutional countries, to be apprehended, 
that the government, whether com- 
pletely responsible to the people or not, 
will often attempt to control the ez- 

Sression of opinion, except when in 
oing so it makes itself the organ of 

properly speaking, political prosecutions. 
The offence charged was not that of criticis- 
ing institutions, or the acts or persons of 
rulers, but of circulating what was deemed 
an immoral doctrine, the lawfulness of Ty- 
rannicide. 

If the arguments of the present chapter 
are of any validity, there ought to exist tlie 
fullest liberty of professing and discussing, 
as a matter of ethical conviction, any doc- 
trine, however immoral it may be considered. 
It would, therefore, be irrelevant and out of 
place to examine here, whether the doctrine 
of Tyrannicide deserves that title. I shall 
content myself with laying that the subject 
has been at all times one of the open ques- 
tions of morals ; that the act of a private 
citizen in striking down a criminal, who, by 
raising himself above the law, has placed 
himself beyond the reach of legal punishment 
or control, has been accounted liy whole 
nations, and by some of the best and wisest 
of men, not a crime, but an act of exalted 
virtue ; and that, right or wrong, it is not of 
the nature of assassination, but of civil war. 
As suoh, I hold that the instigation to it, in 
a specific case, may be a proper subject of 
punishment, but only if an overt act haa 
followed, and at least a probable connexion 
can be established between the act and the 
instigation. Kven then, it Is not a foreign 
government, but the very government as- 
sailed, which alone, in the exercise of self- 
defence, can legitimately puniab at t a ck s 
directed against its own existenoa. 



10 



OF THE WBERTT OP THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



tbe general intolerance of the public. 
Let UB Buppose, therefore, that the 
gOYemment is entirely at one with the 
people, and never thinks of exerting 
any power of coercion unless in agree- 
ment with what it conceives to be their 
voice. But I deny the right of the 
people to exercise such coercion, either 
by themselves or by their government. 
The power itself is illegitimate. The 
best government has no more title to 
it than the worst. It is as noxious, or 
more noxious, when exerted in accord- 
ance with public opinion, than wben 
in opposition to it. If all mankind 
minus one, were of one opinion, and 
only one person were of the contrary 
opinion, mankind would be no more 
justified in silencing that one person, 
than he, if he had the power, would 
be justified in silencing mankind. Were 
an opinion a personal possession of no 
value except to the owner; if to be 
obstructed m the eigoyment of it were 
simply a private injury, it would make 
some difference whether the injury was 
inflicted only on a few persons or on 
manj. But the peculiar evil of si- 
lencmg the expression of an opinion is, 
that it is robbing the human race ; 
posterity as well as the existing gene- 
ration; those who dissent from the 
opinion, still more than those who hold 
it. If the opinion is right, tbey are 
deprived of the opportunity of exchang- 
ing error for trutn : if wrong, they lose, 
what is almost as great a oenent, the 
clearer perception and livelier impres- 
sion of truth, produced by its collision 
with error. 

' It is necessary to consider separatelv 
these two h3rpothese8, each of which 
has a distinct branch of the argument 
corresponding to it. We can never be 
sure that the opinion we are endea- 
vouring to stifle 18 a false opinion ; and 
if we were sure, stifling it would be an 
evil still. 

First: the opinion which it is at- 
tempted to suppress by authority may 
possibly be true. Those who desire to 
suppress it, of course deny its truth ; 
but they are not infallible. They have 
no authority to decide the question for 
aJ] mankind, and «)xclude eveiy other 



person fix>m the means of judging, 
refuse a hearing to an opinion, beca 
they are sure that it is false, is to assu 
that their certainty is the same th 
as absolute certainty. All silencing 
discussion is an assumption of infa 
bility. Its condemnation may be 
lowed to rest on this common ar 
ment, not the worse for being comna 
Unfortunately for the good senst 
mankind, the fact of their fallibility 
far from carrying the weight in tl 
practical jud^ent, which is alw 
allowed to it m theory ; for while ev 
one well knows himself to be falli 
few think it necessary to take anv i 
cautions against their own fallibil 
or admit the supposition that any < 
nion, of which they feel very certj 
may be one of the examples of 
error to which they acknowledge th( 
selves to be liable. Absolute prin< 
or others who are accustomed to u 
mited deference, usually feel this c 
plete confidence in their own opini 
on nearly all subjects. People ir 
happily situated, who sometimes b 
their opinions disputed, and are 
wholly unused to be set right w 
they are wrong, place the same 
bounded reliance only on such of tl 
opinions as are shared by all who i 
round them, or to whom they habitui 
defer: for in proportion to a ms 
want of confidence in his own solit 
judgment, does he usually repose, w 
implicit trust, on the infallibility 
* the world ' in general. And the wo 
to each individual, means the par 
it with which he comes in contact ; 
party, his sect, his church, his clasi 
society: the man may be called, 
comparison, almost liberal and lai 
minded to whom it means anything 
comprehensive as his own countr} 
his own age. Nor is his faith in i 
collective authority at all shaken 
his being aware that other ages, co 
tries, sects, churches, classes, ; 
parties have thought, and even r 
think, the exact reverse. He devol 
upon his own world the responsibi 
01 being in the right against the • 
sentient worlds of other people ; am 
never troubles him that mere accid 
has decided which of these numer 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. II 



>rld8 is the olgect of his reliance, and 
lat the same causes which make him 
Churchman in London, woald have 
^Bade him a Buddhist or a Confucian 
*h Pekin. Tet it is as evident in itself, 
^tB any amount of argument can make 
^ft, that ages are no more infallihle than 
^bdividuals; eyery age having held 
' tnanj opinions which subsequent ages 
f have deemed not only false but absurd ; 
\ and it is as certain that many opinions, 
-' BOW general, will be rejected by future 
7 ages, as it is that many, once general, 
I are rejected hj the present. 
'■ The objection likely to be made to 
" this argument, would probably take 
^ some such form as the following. There 
[ is no greater assumption of infallibility 
[ fa forbidding the propagation of error, 
' tiban in any other thmg which is done 
' by public authority on its own judgment 
; tnd responsibility. Judgment is given 
to men that they may use it. Because 
^ it may be used erroneously, are men to 
> be told that they ought not to use it at 
' all ? To prohibit what they think per- 
* Bicious, is not claiming exemption from 
- error, but fulfilling the duty mcumbent 
'' on them, although fallible, of acting on 
their conscientious conviction. If we 
were never to act on our opinions, be- 
cause those opinions may be wrong, 
we should leave all our interests un- 
cared for, and eH our duties unper- 
formed. An objection which applies 
to all conduct, can be no valid objection 
to any conduct in particular. It is the 
duty of governments, and of indivi- 
duals, to form the truest opinions they 
can ; to form them carefully, and never 
Impose them upon others unless they 
are quite sure of being right. But 
when they are sure (such reasoners may 
■ay), it IS not conscientiousness but 
cowardice to shrink from acting on 
their opinions, and allow doctrines 
which tney honestly think dangerous 
to the welfare of mankind, eitner in 
this life or in another, to be scattered 
tbroad without restraint, because other 
)ople, in less enlightened times, have 
srsecuted opinions now believed to be 
Let us take care, it may be 
dd, not to make the same mistake : 
governments and nations have 
mistakes in other things* which 




are not denied to be fit subjects for the 
exercise of authority : they have laid 
on bad taxes, made unjust wars 
Ought we therefore to lay on no taxes, 
and, under whatever provocation, make 
no wars? Men, and governments, 
must act to the best of their ability. 
Tliere is no such thing as absolute ce^ 
tainty, but there is assurance sufficient 
for the purposes of human life. We 
may, and must, assume our opinion to 
be true for the guidance of our own 
conduct : and it is assuming no more 
when we forbid bad men to pervert 
society by the propagation of opinions 
which we regard as false and perni- 
cious. 

I answer, that it is assuming yery 
much more. There is the greatest 
difference between presuming an opi- 
nion to be true, because, with every 
opportunity for contesting it, it has not 
been refuted, and assuming its truth 
for the purpose of not permitting iti 
refutation. Complete liberty of con- 
tradicting and disprovine our opinion, 
is the very condition which justifies us 
in assuming its truth for purposes of 
action ; and on no other terms can a 
being with human faculties have any 
rational assurance of being right 

When we consider either the history 
of opinion, or the ordinary conduct of 
human life, to what is it to be ascribed 
that the one and the other are no worse 
than they are f Not certainly to the 
inherent force of the human under- 
standing ; for, on any matter not self- 
evident, there are ninety-nine persons 
totally incapable of judging ot it, for 
one who is capable ; and the capacity 
of the hundredth person is only com- 
parative ; for the majority of the emi- 
nent men of every past generation held 
many opinions now known to be erro- 
neous, and did or approved numerous 
things which no one vrill now justify. 
Why is it, then, that there is on Uie 
whole a preponderance among mankind 
of rational opinions and rational con- 
duct? If there really is this prepon- 
derance — which there must be unless 
human affairs are, and have always 
been, in an almost desperate state — it 
is owing to a quality of the human 
min4* the source of ey«r^U&i\^x««^M^ 



i2 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



able in man either as an intellectual 
or as a moral being, namely, that his 
errors are corrigible. He is capable of 
rectifying his mistakes, by discussion 
and experience. Not by experience 
alone. There must be discussion, to 
show how experience is to be inter- 
preted. Wrong opinions and practices 
gradually yield to fact and argument : 
but facts and arguments, to produce 
any effect on the mind, must be Drought 
before it. Very few facts are able to 
tell their own story, without comments 
to bring out their meaning. The 
whole strength and value, uien, of 
human judgment, depending on the 
one property, that it can be set right 
when it is wrong, reliance can be 
placed on it only when the means of 
setting it right are kept constantly at 
hand. In the case of any person 
whose judgment is really deserving of 
confidence, how has it become so? 
Because he has kept his mind open to 
criticism of his opinions and conduct. 
Because it has been his practice to 
listen to all that could be said against 
him ; to profit by as much of it as was 
just, and expound to himself, and upon 
occasion to others, the fallacy of wnat 
was fallacious. Because he has felt, 
that the only way in which a human 
being can make some approach to 
knowing the whole of a subiect, is by 
hearing what can be said about it by 
persons of every variety of opinion, and 
studying all modes in which it can be 
looked at by every character of mind. 
No wise man ever acquired his wisdom 
in any mode but this ; nor is it in the 
nature of human intellect to become 
wise in any other manner. The steady 
habit of correcting and completing his 
own opinion by collating it with those 
of others, so far from causing doubt 
and hesitation in carrying it into prac- 
tice, is the only stable foundation for a 
just reliance on it : for, being cognisant 
of all that can, at least obviously, be 
said against him, and having taken up 
his position against all gainsayers — 
knowing that he has sought for objec- 
tions and difficulties, instead of avoid- 
ing them, and has shut out no light 
which can be thrown upon the subject 
Gvm Mnjr quartet — ^he has a right to 



think his judgment better than that 
any person, or any multitude, who ha 
not gone through a similar process. 

It is not too much to require thf 
what the wisest of mankind, those wh 
are best entitled to trust their ow 
judgment, find necessary to warran 
their relying on it, should be subraitte 
to by that miscellaneous coUectioa c 
a few wise and many foolish indiv 
duals, called the public. The most ii 
tolerant of churcnes, the Boman C 
tholic Church, even at the canonia 
tion of a saint, admits, and liste 

Patiently to, a *devirs advocate.*i 
'he holiest of men, it appears, cann 
be admitted to posthumous honou 
until all that the devil could say agai 
him is known and weighed. If ev 
the Newtonian philosophy were m 
permitted to be questioned, manki 
could not feel as complete assurance 
its truth as they now do. The belit _ 
which we have most warrant for, hani 
no safeguard to rest on, but a standini 
invitation to the whole world to pro^ 
them unfounded. If the challenge 
not accepted, or is accepted and t 
attempt fails, we are far enough fr_ 
certainty still; but we have done ti 
best that the existing state of hum 
reason admits of; we have neglect 
nothing that could give the truth 
chance of reaching us: if the lists a . 
kept open, we ma^ hope that if thea 
be a better truth, it will be found whei 
the human mind is capable of receivin| 
it ; and in the meantime we may relf 
on having^ attained such approach I 
*truth, as is possible in our own da> 
This is the amount of certainty attaii 
able by a fallible being, and this til 
sole way of attaining it. 

Strange it is, that men should admi 
the validity of the arguments for fru 
discussion, but object to their beiif 
'pushed to an extreme;* not seeiial 
that unless the reasons are good f9| 



an extreme case, they are not good fc 
any case. Strange that they shoujj 
imagine that they are not assumirJ 
infallibility, when they acknowleda 
that there should be free discussion o| 
all subjects which can possibly 
doubtful, but think that some partj 
cular principle or doctrine should ' 



i 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DI8CDSS10N. 



18 



bidden to be questioned because it 
10 eertairif that is, because they are 
tain that it is certain. To call any 
position certain, while there is any 
I who would deny its certainty if 
mitted, but who is not permittea, is 
issume that we ourselyes, and those 
3 agree with us, are the judges of 
taintj, and judges without hearing 
other side. 

n the present age — which has been 
cribed as 'destitute of faith, but 
*iRed at scepticism*. — in which 
pie feel sure, not so much that their 
nions are true, as that they should 
know what to do without them — 
claims of an opinion to be protected 
n public attack are rested not so 
ch on its truth, as on its importance 
society. There are, it is alleged, 
tain bejiefs, .so useful, not to sa^ in- 
lensable to well-b^ing, that it is as 
sh the duty of goyemments to up- 
1 those beliefs, as to protect any 
er of the interests of society. In a 
B of such necessity, and so directly 
he line of their duty, something less 
D infallibility may, it is maintained, 
rant, and eyen bind, goyemments, 
ict on their own opinion, confirmed 
the genera] opinion of mankind. It 
ilso often argued, and still oftener 
jght, that none but bad men would 
ire to weaken these salutary beliefs ; 
there can be nothing wrong, it is 
a^ht, in restraining bad men, and 
hi biting what only such men would 
b to practise. This mode of think- 
makes the justification of restraints 
liscussion not a question of the truth 
doctrines, but of their usefulness; 
i flatters itself by that means to 
ape the responsibility of claiming to 
an infallible judg^e of opinions. Bnt 
se who thus satisfy tnemselyes, do 

Eerceiye that the assumption of in- 
ility is merely shiffcea from one 
at to another. The usefulness of an 
aion is itself matter of opinion : as 
putable, as open to discussion, and 
idrin^ discussion as much, as the 
Dion itself. There is the same need 
m infallible judge of opinions to de- 
e an opinion to be noxious, as to 
;ide it to be false, unless the opinion 
idemned has full opportunity of de- 



fending itself. And it will not do to 
say that the heretic may be allowed to 
maintain the utility or narmlessness of 
his opinion, though forbidden to main- 
tain its truth. Ine truth of an opinion 
is part of its utility. If we would know 
whether or not it is desirable that a 
proposition should be belieyed, is it 
possible to exclude the consideration of 
whether or not it is true ? In the opi- 
nion, not of bad men, but of the best 
men, no belief which is contrary to truth 
can be really useful : and can you pre- 
yent such men from urging that plea, 
when they ara charged with culpability 
for denying some doctrine which they 
are told is useful, but which they be- 
lieye to be false? Those who are on 
the side of receiyed opinions, neyor fail 
to take all possible adyantage of this 
plea; you do not find them bandhng 
the question of utility as if it could be 
completely abstracted from that of 
truth : on the contrary, it is, aboye all, 
because their doctrine is 'the truth,' 
that the knowledge or the belief of it 
ii held to be so indispensable. There 
can be no fairdiscussipn of the question 
of usefulness, when an argument so 
yital may be employed on one side, but 
not on the other. And in point of fact, 
when law or public feeline do not per- 
mit the truth of an opinion to be dis* 
puted, they are just as little tolerant oi 
a denial of its usefulness The utmost 
they allow is an extenuation of its ab- 
solute necessity, or of the positiye guilt 
of rejecting it. 

In order more fully to illustrate the 
mischief of denying a hearing to opi- 
nions because we, in our own judgment, 
haye condemned them, it will be de- 
sirable to fix down the discussion to a 
concrete csuse ; and I choese, by pre- 
ference, the cases which are least 
fayourable to me — ^in which the argu- 
ment against freedom of opinion, both 
on the score of truth and on that of 
utility, is considered the strongest. 
Let the opinions impugned be the belief 
in a God and in a future state, or any 
of the commonly receiyed doctrines of 
morality. To fight the battle on such 
ground, gives a great adyantage to an 
unfair antagonist ; since he wiU be sure 
to sa^ (and many who have no dAi»s« 



14 



OF THE LIBERTY OP THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



to be unfair will saj it internally), Are 
these the doctrines which you do not 
deem safficiently certain to be taken 
under the protection of law? Is the 
belief in a God one of the opinions, to 
feel sure of which, you hold to be as- 
saming infallibility? But I must be 
permitted to observe, that it is not the 
feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what 
it may) which I call an assumption of 
infalhbility. It is the undertaVing to 
decide that question /br others^ with- 
out allowing them to near what can be 
said on the contrary side. And I de- 
nounce and reprobate this pretension 
not the less, if put forth on tne side of 
my most solemn convictions. How- 
ever positive any one's persuasion may 
be, not only of the falsity but of the 
pernicious consequences — not only of 
the pernicious consequences, but (to 
adopt expressions which I altogether 
condemn) the immorality and impiety 
of an opinion ; yet if, in pursuance of 
that private judgment, though backed 
by the public judgment of his country 
or his cotemporaries, he prevents the 
opinion from being heard in its defence, 
he assumes infallibility. And so far 
from the assumption being less objec- 
tionable or less dangerous because the 
opinion is called immoral or impious, 
• this is the case of all others in which 
it is most fatal. These are exactiv the 
occasions on which the men of one 
generation commit those dreadful mis- 
takes, which excite the astonishment 
and horror of posterity. It is among 
such that we find the instances memo- 
rable in history, when the arm of the 
law has been employed to root out the 
best men and the noblest doctrines; 
with deplorable success as to the men, 
though some of the doctrines have sur- 
vived to be (as if in mockery) invoked, 
n defence of similar conduct towards 
those who dissent from themy or from 
their received interpretation. 

Mankind can hardly be too often re- 
minded, that there was once a man 
named Socrates, between whom and the 
legal authorities and public opinion of 
his time, there took place a memorable 
collision. Bom in an age and country 
abounding in individual greatness, this 
91MD ha» been handed down te us by 



those who best knew both him and 
age, as the most virtuous man it 
while we know him as the head 
prototype of all subsequent teache 
virtue, the source equally of the '. 
inspiration of Plato and the judic 
utilitarianism of Aristotle, ' % mai 
di color eke tannn * the two headspr 
of ethical as of 4II other philoso 
This acknowledged master of all 
eminent thinkers who have since 1 
— whose fame, still growing after r 
than two thpusand years, all but 
weighs the whole remainder of 
names which make his native city i 
trious — was put to death by his coue 
men, after a judicial conviction, 
impiety and immorality. Impiety 
denying the gods recognised by 
State ; indeed his accuser asserted 
the 'Apologia') that he believed ii 

fods at all. Immorality, in being 
is doctrines and instructions, a ' 
ruptor of youth.' Of these charges 
tiibunal, there is every ground for 
lieving, honestly found him guilty, 
condenmed the man who probabl 
all then bom had deserved best 
mankind, to be put to death t 
criminal. 

To pass from this to the only 0I 

instance of judicial iniquity, the n 

tion of which, after the condemna 

of Socrates, would not be an a 

climax: the event which took p] 

on Calvary rather more than eight 

hundred years ago. The man who 

on the memory of those who witnes 

his life and conversation, such an 

pression of his moral grandeur, i 

eighteen subsequent centuries h; 

done homage to him as the Almig 

in person, was ignominiously put 

death, as what? As a blaRphen: 

Men did not merely mistake tL 

benefactor ; they mistook him for 

exact contrary of what he was, a 

treated him as that prodigy of impie 

which thev themselves are now Ik 

to be, for their treatment of him. 1 

feelings with which mankind now 

gard these lamentable transactio 

especially the later of the two, ren( 

them exti*emely unjust in their jiu 

ment of the unhappy actors. The 

were, to all appearance, not bad men 



OF TUB LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



18 



>^t worse than men commonly are, but 
' inatiier the contrary ; men who pos- 
i«M8sed in a full, or somewhat more 
<<ilutn a full measure, the relgious, 
:,iiioral, and patriotic feelings of t^eir 
itime and people : the yery kind of men 
"-who, in all times, onr own included, 
^liaye every chance of passing through 
fJah blameless and respected. The 
L)dgh-priest who rent his garments 
^when the words were pronounced, 
r which, according to all the ideas of his 
ttoonntry, constituted the blackest guilt, 
1 was in all probability (|uite as sincere 
it'Ahis horror and indignation, as the 
}genendity of respectable and pious 
omen now are in the religious and 
i moral sentiments they profess; and 
bmost of those who now shudder at his 
4 oondnct, if they had lived in his time, 
I and been bom Jews, would have acted 
I precisely as he did. Orthodox Chris- 
c tiana who are tempted to think that 
Ithoae who stoned to death the first 
> martyrs must have been worse men 
I than they themselves are, ought to re- 
member that one of those persecutors 
was Saint PauL 
I Let us add one more example, the 
most striking of ail, if the impressive- 
1 neas of an error is measured by the 
3 wisdom and virtue of him who falls 
X into it. If ever any one, possessed of 
kt power, had grounds for thinking him- 
icielf the best and most enlightened 
!< among his cotemporaries, it was the 
cKfflperor Marcus Aurelius. Absolute 
i« monarch of the whole civilized world, 
jth» preserved through life not only the 
umoat unblemished justice, but what 
iWfts less to be expected from his 
itStmcal breeding, the tenderest heart. 
(Hie few failings which are attributed 
3 to him, were all on the side of indul- 
3 gtece : while his writings, the highest 
l[etiiical product of the ancient mind, 
1 Pilfer scarcely perceptibly, if they differ 
XM all, from the most characteristic 
iMAchings of Christ. This man, a better 
ifCluistian in all but the dogmatic sense 
the word, than almost any of the 
ktensibly Christian sovereigns who 
ive since reigned, persecuted Chris- 
mity. Placed at the summit of all 
le previous attainments of humanity, 
ith an open, unfettered intellect, and 



a character which led him of himself 
to embody in his moral writings the 
Christian ideal, he yet failed to see 
that Christianity was to be a good and 
not an evil to the world, with his 
duties to which he was so deeply 
penetrated. Existing society he knew 
to be in a deplorable state. But such 
as it was, he saw, or thought he saw, 
that it was held together, and pre- 
vented from being worse, by belief 
and reverence of the received divini- 
ties. As a ruler of mankind, he 
deemed it his duty not to suffer societv 
to fall in pieces ; and saw not how, if 
its existing ties were removed, any 
others could be formed which could 
again knit it together. The new re- 
ligion openly aimed at dissolving these 
ties : unless, therefore, it was his duty 
to adopt that religion, it seemed to be 
his duty to put it down. Inasmuch 
then as the theology of Christianity 
did not appear to him true or of divine 
origin ; inasmuch as this strange his- 
torv of a crucified God was not credible 
to him, and a system which purported 
to rest entirely upon a foundation to 
him so wholly unbelievable, could not 
be foreseen by him to be that renovating 
agency which, after all abatements, it 
has in fact proved to be ; the gentlest 
and most amiable of philosophers and 
rulers, under a solemn sense of duty, 
authorized the persecution of Chris- 
tianity. To my mind this is one of 
the most tragical facts in all history. 
It is a bitter thought, how different a 
thing the Christianity of the world 
might have been, if the Christian faith 
had been adopted as the religion of 
the empire under the auspices of Mar- 
cus Aurelius instead of tnose of Con- 
stantino. But it would be equally 
unjust to him and false to truth, to 
deny, that no one plea which can be 
urged for punishing anti-Christiai 
teaching, was wanting to Marcus 
Aurelius for punishing, as he did, the 
propagation of Christianity. No 
Christian more firmly believes that 
Atheism is false, and tends to the dis- 
solution of society, than Marcus Aure- 
lius believed the same things of Chris- 
tianity ; he who, of all men then liv- 
ing, might have been thought tb& vqsmI 



i6 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOQGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



oapable of appreciating it. UnlesB 
any one who approves of punishment 
for the promulgation oi opmions, 
flatters himself that he is a wiser and 
better man than Marcus Aurelius — 
more deeply yersed in the wisdom of 
his time, more elevated in his intellect 
above it — more earnest in his search 
for truth, or more single-minded in his 
devotion to it when found; let him 
abstain from that assumption of the 
joint infallibility of himself and the 
multitude, which Uie great Antoninus 
made with so unfortunate a result. 

Aware of the impossibility of defend- 
ing the use of punishment for restrain- 
hig irreligious opinions, by any argu- 
ment which will not justify Marcus 
Antoninus, the enemies of religious 
fieedom, when hard pressed, occasion- 
ally accept this consequence, and say, 
with Dr. Johnson, that the persecutors 
of Christianity were in the right ; that 
persecution is an ordeal through which 
truth ought to pass, and always passes 
successfully, legal penalties being, in 
the end, powerless against truth, 
though sometimes beneficially effective 
against mischievous errors. This is a 
form of the argument for religious in- 
tolerance, sufficiently remarkable not 
to be passed without notice. 

A theory which maintains that truth 
may justifiably be persecuted because 
persecution cannot possibly do it any 
narm, cannot be charged with being 
intentionally hostile to the reception 
of new truths; but we cannot com- 
mend the generosity of its dealing with 
the persons to whom mankind are in- 
debted for them. To discover to the 
world something which deeply con- 
cerns it, and of which it was previously 
ignorant; to prove to it that it h&a 
been mistaken on some vital point of 
temporal or spiritual interest, is as im- 
portant a service as a human being 
can render to his fellow-creatures, and 
in certain cases, as in those of the early 
Christians and of the lleformers, those 
who think with Dr. Johnson believe it 
to have been the most precious gift 
which could be bestowed on mankind. 
That the authors of such splendid be- 
nefits should be requited by martyr- 
icm: thai their reward shoud be to 



be dealt with as the vilest of criminahl 
is not, upon this theory, a deplorable 
error and misfortune, for which hi: 
manity should mourn in sackcloth aal ' 
ashes, but the normal and justitiaUi 
state of things. The propounder of 1 1 
new truth, according to tnis doctriui^ 
should stand, as stood, in the legisl*! 
tion of the Ix)crians, the proposer of i' 
new law, with a halter round his necl^ 
to be instantly tightened if the publJil 
assembly did not, on hearing his rei^ 
sons, then and there adopt his propo* | 
tion. People who defend this mode if 
treating benefactors, cannot be sup>| 
posed to set much value on the benefit; 
and I believe this view of the subjed 
is mostly confined to the sort of person ^ 
who think that new truths may havi 
been desirable once, but that we hail { 
had enough of them now. 

But, indeed, the dictum that truth If 
always triumphs over persecution, ill 
one of those pleasant falsehoods which ||i 
men repeat after one another till thw lii 
pass into commonplaces, but whiaiV 
all experience refutes. History tceitf 
with mstances of truth put down If 
persecution. Knot suppressed for ey«^ 
it may be thrown bacK for centurisft 
To speak onl^ of religious opinionr. 
the lieformation broke out at leait|iH 
twenty times before Lu'her, and 
put down. Arnold of Bi-escia was pfll' k 
down. Fra Dolcino was put dowft 
Savonarola was put down. The Alii 
geois were put down. The Vaudoi 
were put down. The Lollards w 

Sut down. The Hussites were pi 
own. Even after the era of Luthc 
wherever persecution was persisted i 
it was successful. In Spain, Ital^' 
Flanders, the Austrian empire, P ^ 
testantism was rooted out ; and, m 
likely, would have been so in En^lai 
had Queen Mary lived, or Queen Eli 
beth died. Persecution has alwa; 
succeeded, save where the hereti 
were too strong a party to be efiec 
ally persecuted. No reasonable pers 
can doubt that Christianity mig 
have been extii*pated in the Horn 
Empire. It spread, and became p 
dominant, because the persecutioi 
were only occasional, lasting but a she 
time, and separated by long intervd 



.ti 



OF THE LIBBRTT OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 17 



ImoBt nndistiirbed propaeandism. 
a piece of idle sentunent^ity that 
1, merely as truth, has any inhe- 
power denied to error, of prevail- 
Against the dungeon and the stake. 
. are not more zealons for truth 
I they often are fer error, and a 
cient application of legal or even 
xnal penalties will generally sue- 
in stopping the propagation of 
)r. The real adyantase which 
\i has consists in this, that when 
>pinion is true, it may be extin- 
hed once, twice, or many times, 
in the course of ages there will 
irally be found persons to rediscover 
ntil some one of its reappearances 
on a time when from favourable 
tmstances it escapes persecution 
. it has made such head as to wiUi- 
i all subsequent attempts to sup- 
i it. 

will be said, that we do not now 
to death the introducers of new 
ions : we are not like our fathers 
slew the prophets, we even build 
Ichres to them. It is true we no 
sr put heretics to death ; and the 
int of penal infliction which mo- 
feeling would probably tolerate, 
against the most obnoxious opi- 
B, 18 not sufficient to extirpate 
I. But let us not flatter ourselves 
we are yet free from the stain 
of legal persecution. Penalties 
opinion, or at least for its expres- 
still exist by law ; and their en- 
■ment is not, even in these times, 
nexampled as to make it at all in- 
ible that they may some day be 
red in full force. In the year 
', at the . summer assises of the 
ty of CSomwall, an unfortunate 
,* said to be of unexceptionable 
uct in all relations of life, was sen- 
3d to twenty-one months' impri- 
lenty for uttering, and writing on 
te, some ofiknsive words concerning 
stianity. Within a month of the 
) time, at the Old Bailey, two per- 
, on two separate occasions,f were 

rhonias Pootoy, Bodmin Assizes, July 
t67. InOecemb6rfolkwing,fai«receiT6d 
) IMurdtm from tb« Crown, 
toorge Jacob Holyoake, August 17, 1867; 
trd TriMloTe, July, 1867. 



rejected as iurvmen, and one of their 
grossly insulted by the judge and by 
one of the counsel, because they ho' 
nestly declared that they had no theo- 
logical belief; and a third, a foreigner,* 
for the same reason, was denied justiot 
against a thief. This refusal of redrass 
took place in virtue of the leeal doo- 
tnne, that no person can be allowed to 
eive evidence m a court of justice, who 
does^ not profess belief in a Qod (any 
god is sufiocient) and in a future state- 
which is equivalent to declarine suol 
persons to be outlaws, excluded from 
the protection of the tribunals; who 
may not only be robbed or assaulted 
with impunity, if no one but them- 
selves, or persons of similar opinions, 
be present, but any one else may be 
robbed or assaulted with impunity, if 
the proof of the fact depends on their 
evidence. The assumption on whiok 
this is grounded, is that the oath is 
worthless, of a person who does not 
believe in a future state ; a proposition 
which betokens much ignorance of his- 
tory in those who assent to it (since it 
is historically true that a laive propor- 
tion of infidels in all ages have been 
persons of distinguished integrity and 
honour) ; and would be maintained by 
no one who had the smallest conoep 
tion how man^ of the persons in great- 
est repute with the world, both for 
virtues and attainments, are well 
known, at least to their intimates, to 
be unbelievers. The rule, besides, is 
suicidal, and cuts away its own foun> 
dation. Under pretence that atheists 
must be liars, it admits the testimony 
of all atheists who are willing to lie^ 
and rejects only those who brave the 
obloquy of publicly confessing a de- 
tested creed rather than affirm a false- 
hood. A rule thus self-convicted of 
absurdity so far as regards its professed 

a pose, can be kept in force only as a 
ge of hatred, a relic of persecution; 
a persecution, too, having the peouli' 
anty, that the qualification for under- 
going it, is the beine clearly proved 
not to deserve it The rule, and the 
theory it implies, are hardly less in. 
suiting to believers than to infidels. 

* Baron do Gleichen, Marlbonwgli.strMt 
PoUce Court, August 4, 1867. 



18 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



For if be who does not believe in a 
future state, necessarily lies, it follows 
that they who do believe are onlj pre- 
vented from lying, if prevented tney 
are, by the fear of hell. We will not 
do the authors and abettors of the rule 
the injury of supposing, that the con- 
ception which they have formed of 
Christian virtue is drawn from their 
own consciousness. 

These, indeed, are but rags and 
remnants of persecution, and may be 
thought to be not so much an indica- 
tion of the wish to persecute, as an ex- 
ample of that very frequent infirmity of 
English minds, which makes them 
take a preposterous pleasure in the as- 
sertion of a bad principle, when they 
are no longer bad enough to desire to 
carry it really into practice. But un- 
happily there is no security in the state 
of tne publio mind, that the suspen- 
sion of worse forms of legal perse- 
oution, whioh has lasted for about the 
space of a generation, will continue. 
In this age the quiet surface of routine 
is as often ruffled by attempts to resus- 
citate past evils, as to introduce new 
benefits. What is boasted of at the 
prepent time as the revival of religion, 
18 always, in narrow and uncultivated 
minds, at least as much the^vival of 
bigotry ; and where there is the strong 
permanent leaven of intolerance in the 
feelings of a people, which at lUl times 
abides in the middle classes of this 
country, it needs but little to provoke 
them into actively persecuting those 
whom thev have never ceased to think 
proper objects of persecution.* For 

* Ample warning may b« drawn from the 
large infusion of the paaiiont of a perse- 
cutor, which mingled with the general dis- 
play of the worst parts of our national cha- 
racter on the occasion of the Sepoy insurrec- 
tion. The ravings of fiuiatios or charlatans 
flrom the pulpit may be unworthy of notice ; 
but the heads of the Evangelical party have 
announced as tiieir principle for the govern- 
ment of Hindoos and Biahomedans, that no 
schools be supported by public money in 
whioh the Bible is not taught, and by neces- 
sary consequence that no public employment 
be given to any but real or pretended Chris- 
tians. An Under-Secretary of State, in a 
speech delivered to his constituents on the 
12th of November, 1867, is reported to have 
said: 'Toleration of their faith' (the faith 
of M hundred millions of British subjects), 
ike mpenaVoa which they called r^isioa. 



it is this — it is the opinions men ei 
tain, and the feelings they cherist 
specting those who disown the l>€ 
they deem important, which m 
this country not a place of mental 
dom. For a long time past, the < 
mischief of the legal penalties is 
thev strengthen the social stigma, 
is that stigma which is really efied 
and so effective is it, that the profet 
of opinions which are under the b< 
society is much less common in '. 
land, than is, in many other count 
the avowal of those which incur 
of judicial punishment. In respc< 
all persons but those whose pecur 
circumstances make them inaepen 
of the good will of other people, 
nion, on this subject, is as emcacio 
law ; men might as well be imprisc 
as excluded from the means of ear 
their bread. Those whose brea 
already secured, and who desire 
favours from men in power, or 
bodies of men, or from the public, 
nothing to fear from the open av 
of anv opinions, but to be ill-tho 
of and ill-spoken of, and this it o 
not to require a very heroic moul 
enable them to bear. There h 
room for any appeal ad miaericon 
in behalf of such persons. But th( 
we do not now inflict so much evi 
those who think differently from u 
it was formerly our custom to d 
may be that we do ourselves as n 
evil as ever by our treatment of tl 
Socrates was put to death, but 

by the British Government, had had 
effect of retarding the ascendancy ol 
British name, and preventing the salt 

growth of Christianity Tuler 

was the great corner-stone of the reli 
liberties of this country ; but do not let 
abuse that precious word toleration. / 
understood it, it meant the complete HI 
to all, freedom of worship, among Chrisi 
who woTihipptd upon the iamt foundu 
It meant toleration of all sects and der 
nations of Gkriatiant who believed in th, 
mediation * I desire to call attention t 
fact, that a man who has been deemed 
fill, a high office in the government of 
country under a liberal Ministry, main 
the doctrine that all who do not belie 
the divinity of Christ are beyond the pa 
toleration. Who, after this imbecile 
play, can indulge the illusion that reli) 
persecution has passed away, never U. 
torn? 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



lif 



flourstic philosophy rose like the sun 
a heaven, and spread its illumination 
oier the whole intellectual firmament. 
C^ristianB were cast to the lions, but 
tbe Christian church grew up a stately 
and spreading tree, overtopping the 
older and less vigorous growths, and 
adfting them by its shade. Our merely 
locial intolerance kills no one, roots 
OBt uo opinions, but induces men to 
iiiguise them, or to abstain from any 
ictive effort for their diifusion. With 
My heretical opinions do not perceptibly 
(wn, or even lose, ground m each de- 
iade or generation; they never blaze 
>at far and wide, but continue to 
moulder in the narrow circles of 
hiuking and studious persons among 
rhom they originate, without ever 
i|^hiing up the general affiiirs of man- 
and with either a true or a deceptive 
Ight. And thus is kept up a state of 
hings very satisfactory to some minds, 
localise, without the unpleasant pro- 
ess of fining or imprisonmg anybody, 
b maintainBall prevailing opinions out- 
rardly undisturood, while it does not 
.boolutely interdict the exercise of rea* 
on bv dissentients afflicted with the 
nalaay of thought. A convenient plan 
or having peace in the intellectual 
rofld, ana keeping all things going on 
lierein very much as they do already. 
^i the price paid for this sort of intel- 
ectual pacification, is the sacrifice of 
die entire moral courage of the human 
nind. A state of things in which a 
■urge portion of the most active and 
inquiring intellects find it advishble to 
bwp the general principles and grounds 
~' their convictions within their own 
ig, and attempt, in what they 
ress to the public, to fit as much 
they can of their own conclusions to 
nisei which they have internally 
tunoed, cannot send forth the open, 
I characters, and logical, con- 
t intellects who once adorned the 
iking world. The sort of mun who 
be looked for under it, are either 
oonformers to common-place, or 
rvers for truth, whose arguments 
great subjects are meant for their 
rs, and are not those which have 
ivinoed themselves. Those who 
this alternative, do so ^j nar- 



f 
It 

ev 
«1 
e 



rowing their thoughts and interest to 
things which can be spoken of without 
venturing within the region of prin- 
ciples, that is, to small practical mat- 
ters, which would come right of them- 
selves, if but the minds of mankind 
were strengthened and enlarged, and 
which vrill never be made efioctually 
right until then: while that which 
would strengthen and enlarge men's 
minds, free and daring speculation on 
the highest subjects, is abandoned. 

Those in whose eyes this reticence 
on the part of heretics is no evil, should 
consider in the first place, that in con- 
sequence of it there is never any fair 
and thorough discussion of heretical 
opinions; and that such of them as 
could not stand such a discussion, 
though they may be prevented from 
spreading, do not disappear. But it is 
not the minds of heretics that are dete- 
riorated most, by the ban placed on al^ 
inquiry which does not end in th\. 
ortuoaox conclusions. The greatest 
harm done is to those who are not 
heretics, and whose wliole mental deve- 
lopment is cramped, and their reason 
cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who 
can compute what the world loses m 
the multitude of promising intellects 
combined with timid characters, who 
dare not follow out any bold, vigorous 
independent train of thought, lest it 
shouM land them in something whick 
would admit of being considered irre- 
ligious or immoral ? Among them we 
may occasionally see some man of deep 
conscientiousness, and subtle and re- 
fined understanding, who spends a life 
in sophisticating with an intellect which 
he cannot silence, and exhausts the 
resources of ingenuity in attempting 
to reconcile the promptings of his con- 
science and reason with orthodoxy, 
which yet he does not, perhaps, to the 
end succeed in doing;. No one can be 
a gpreat thinker who does not recognise, 
that as a thinker it is his first duty to 
follow his intellect to whatever con- 
clusions it may lead. Truth gains more 
even by the errors of one who, with due 
study and preparation, thinks for hiK" 
self, than by the true opinions of those 
who only hold them because they do 
not sufiEer themselvet (a thisJL, ^^ 



20 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



that it Is solely, or chiefly, to form great 
thinkers, that freedom of thinking is 
required. On the contrary, it is as 
much and even more indispensable, to 
enable average human beings to attain 
the mentol stature which they are 
capable of. lliere have been, and may 
again be, great individual thinkers, in 
a general atmosphere of mental slavery. 
But there never has been, nor ever will 
be, in that atmosohere, an intellectually 
active people. \Vhere anv people has 
made a temporary approach to such a 
character, it has been because the 
dread of heterodox speculation was for 
a time suspended. Where there is a 
tacit convention that principles are not 
to be disputed; where the discossion 
of the greatest questions which can 
occupy humanity is considered to be 
closed, we cannot hope to find that 
generally high scale of mental activity 
which has made some periods of histoiy 
so remarkable. Never when oontio- 
rersy avoided the subjects which are 
large &nd important enough to kindle 
enthusiasm, was the mind of a pe(»ple 
fvtirred up from its foundations, and the 
impulse given which raised even per- 
sons of the most ordinary intellect to 
something of the dignity of thinking 
beings. Of such we nave had an ex- 
ample in the condition of Europe during 
the times immediately following the 
Reformation; another, though limited 
to the Continent and to a more culti- 
vated class, in the speculative move- 
ment of the latterhalf of the eighteenth 
century; and a third, of still briefer 
duration, in the intellectual fermenta- 
tion of Germany during the Goethian 
and Fichtean period. These periods 
differed widely in the particular opi- 
nions which they developed ; but were 
alike in this, that during all three the 
yoke of authority was broken. In each, 
an old mental despotism had been 
thrown off, and no new one had yet 
taken its place. The impulse given at 
these three periods has made Europe 
what it now is. Every single improve- 
ment which -has taken place either in 
the human mind or in institutions, may 
be traced distinctly to one or other of 
ibem. Appearances hav« for some time 
Mdioated that all three impoUefi «i« 



well nigh spent; and we can ex 
no fresh start, until we again asser 
mental freedom. 

Let us now pass to the second 
sion of the argument, and dismis 
the supposition that any of the rece 
opinions may be false, let us ass 
them to be true, and examine intc 
worth of the manner in which the} 
likelv to be held, when their tnit 
not freely and openly canvassed. I 
ever unwillingly a person who h 
strong opinion may admit the possib 
that his opinion may be false, he oi 
to be moved by the consideration 
however true it may be, if it is not f 
freauently, and fearlessly discussei 
will be held as a dead dogma, i 
Kving truth. 

There is a class of persons (hap 
not quite so numerous as formerly) 
thinx it enough if a person assents 
doubtingly to what they think 1 
though ne has no knowledge what 
of the grounds of the opinion, and c 
not make a tenable defence of it ags 
the most superficial objections. 1^ 
persons, if they can once get their c 
taught firom authority, naturally tl 
that no good, and' some harm, cc 
of its being allowed to be questio 
Where their influence prevails, i 
make it nearly impossible for the 
ceived opinion to be rejected wisely 
considerately, though it mav stil 
rejected rashly and ignorantiy ; fc 
shut out discussion entirely is seh 
possible, and when it once gets in, 
liefs not grounded on conviction are 
to give way before the slightest s 
blance of an argument. Waving, h 
ever, this possibility — assuming t 
the true opinion abides in the m 
but abides as a prejudice, a belief ii 
pendent o( ana proof against, ai 
ment — ^this is not the way in w) 
truth oi:^t to be held by a ratio 
being. This is not knowing the tn 
Truth, thus held, is but one supei 
tion the mor», accidentally clinging 
the words which enunciate a truth. 

If the intellect and judgment of m 
kind ought to be cultivated, a tb 
which Protestants at least do not dc 
OB what can these faculties be m 
appropriately exercised by any c 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



tJ 



1 cm the things which concern him 
nnch that it is considered neces- 
' for him to hold opinions on them ? 
lie cultivation of the understanding 
lists in one thing more'^than in 
ther, it is surelj in learning the 
mds of one's own opinions. What- 
* people believe, on subjects on 
ch it IS of the first importance to 
3ve rightlv, they ought to be able 
efend against at least the common 
ctions. But, some on$ maj say, 
t them be tatight 4fae grounds of 
r opinions. It does not follow that 
lions must be merely parroted be- 
se they are never heard contro- 
ed. Persons who learn geometry 
lot simply commit the theorems to 
aory, but understand and learn like- 
) the demonstrations ; and it would 
sibsurd to say that they remain 
)rant of the grounds of geometrical 
hs, because they never hear any 
deny, and attempt to disprove 
n.' Undoubtedly : and such teach- 
suffices on a subject like mathe- 
ics, where there is nothing at all to 
aid on the wron^ side of the ques- 
. The peculiantv of the evidence 
nathematical trutas is, that all the 
jment is on one side. There are 
objections, and no answers to ob- 
ions. But on every subject on 
ch difference of opinion is possible, 
truth depends on a balance to be 
ck between two sets of conflict- 
reasons. Even in natural philo- 
13, iherB is always some other ex- 
lation possible of the same facts ; 
e geocentric theorpr instead of helio- 
^c, some phlogiston instead of 
gen ; and it has to be shown why 
; other theory cannot be the true 
: and until tnis is shown, and until 
know how it is shown, we do not 
erstand the grounds of our opinion, 
when we turn to subjects infinitely 
e complicated, to morals, religion, 
tics, social relations, and the busi- 
9 of life, three-fourths of the argu- 
its for eveiy disputed opinion con- 
in dispemng the appearances 
ch £ftvour some opinion different 
1 it. The greatest orator, save one, 
atiqaity, has left it on record that 
ilwajB «iadicd his adversary's case 



with as great, if not still greater, in- 
tensity than even his own. What Cicero 
practised as the means of forensic suc- 
cess, reqidres to be imitated by all who 
study any subject in order to arrive at 
the truth. He who knows only his own 
side of the case, knows little of that. 
His reasons may be good, and no one 
may have been able to refute them. 
But if he is equally unable to refute 
the reasons on the opposite side ; if he 
does not so much as know what they 
are, he has no gx)und for preferring 
either opinion. The rational position 
for him would be suspension of judg- 
ment, and unless he contents himself 
with that, he is either led by authority, 
or adopts, like the generality of the 
world, the side to which he feels most 
, inclination. Nor is it enough that he 
should hear the arguments of adver- 
saries from his own teachers, presented 
as they state them, and accompanied 
bv what they offer as refutations. Thaj 
is not the way to do justice to the argu 
n^ents, or bring them into real contact 
with his own mind. He must be able 
to iiear them from persons who actually 
believe them ; who defend thenr in 
earnes t, and do their verv utmost for 
them.~ He must know them in the^t 
most plausible and persuasive form ; he 
must leel the whole force of the diffi- 
culty which the true view of the subject 
has to encounter and dispose of ; else 
he will never really possess himself of 
the portion of truth which meets and 
removes that difiiculty. Ninety-nine 
in a hundred of what are called edu- 
cated men are in this condition ; even 
of those who can argue fluently for 
their opinions. Their conclusion may 
be true, but it might be false for any- 
thing they know: they have never 
thrown themselves into the mental 
position of those who think differentlv 
from them, and considered what such 
persons may have to say ; and conse- 
quently they do not, in any proper 
sense of the word, know the doctnne 
which they themselves profess. They 
do not know those parts of it which ex- 
plain and justi^ the remainder ; the 
considerations wnich show that a fact 
which seemingly conflicts with another 
1^ reconcilable mih \t,QJC iWV^l V^^ 



n OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



apparently strong reasons, one and not 
the other ought to be preferred. All 
that part of the truth which turns the 
scale, and decides the judgment of a 
completely informed mind, they are 
strangers to ; nor is it ever really 
known, but to those who have attended 
equally and impartially to both sides, 
and endeavoured to see the reasons of 
both in the strongest light. So essential 
is this discipline to a real understand- 
ing of moral and human subjects, that 
if opponents of all important trutKs do 
not exist, it is indispensable to imagine 
them, and supply them with the 
strongest arguments which the most 
skilful devil's advocate can conjure up. 
To abate the force of these considera- 
tions, an enemy of free discussion may 
be supposed to sav, that there is no 
necessity for mankind in general to 
know and understand all that can be 
said against or for their opinions by 
philosophers and theologians. That it 
IS not needful for common men to be 
able to expose all the misstatements or 
fallacies of an ingenious opponent. 
That it is enough if there |s always 
somebody capable of answering them, 
so that nothing likely to mislead un- 
instructed persons remains unrefuted. 
That simple minds, having been 
taught the obvious grounds of the 
trutns inculcated on them, may trust 
to authority for the rest, and being 
aware that they have neither know- 
ledge nor talent to resolve eveiy diffi- 
cultv which can be raised, may repose 
in the assurance that all those which 
have been raised have been or can be 
■^swered, by those who are specially 
O'ained to the task. 

Conceding to this view of the subject 
the utmost that can be claimed for 
it by those most easily satisfied with 
the amount of understanding of truth 
which ought to accompany the belief 
of it ; even so, the argument for free 
discussion is no way weakened. For 
even this doctrine acknowledges that 
mankind ought to have a rational ash 
surance that all objections have been 
satisfactorily answered ; and how are 
they to be answered if that which le- 
guireB to be answered is not spoken ? 
or how can the answer be known to be 






satisfactory, if the objectors have 
opportunity of showing that it is 
satisfactory? If not the public, 
least tjj^ philosophers and tneologi 
who i^-to resolve the difficulthL 
must make themselves familiar vHt 
those difficulties in their most puzzlitf 
form ; and this cannot be accomplishll 
unless they are fi-eely stated, and placi 
in the most advantageous light whid 
they admit of. The Catholic ChurA 
has Ha own way of dealing with tli 
embarrassing problem. It makes 
broad separation between those wk 
can be permitted to receive its doctriiM I 
on conviction, and those who mwtl 
accept them on trust. Neither, indeed, 
are allowed any choice as to what thiBf 
will accept ; but the clergv, such i 
least as can be fully confi(ied in, nuf 
admissibly and meritoriously mail 
themselves acquainted with the argi 
ments of opponents, in order to aiis^ 
them, and may, therefore, readhereticrf 
books ; the laity, not unless by spedrf 

Sermission, hard to be obtained. IIm 
iscipline recognises a knowledge 4i( 
the enemy*8 case as beneficial to tii 
teachers, but finds means, consisteil 
with this, of denying it to the restif 
the world : thus giving to the M 
more mental culture, though not moM 
mental freedom, than it allows to til 
mass. By this device it succeeds k 
obtaining the kind of mental superion^ 
which its purposes require ; for thotp 
culture without fi*eedom never madii 
large and liberal mind, it can mal9l 
clever nisi priua advocate of a cam 
But in countries professing Protestaai^ 
ism, this resource is denied ; siai 
Protestants hold, at least in theqqi 
that the responsibility for the chcHi 
of a religion must be borne by each k 
himself, and cannot be thrown 4 
upon teachers. Besides, in the presii 
state of the world, it is practically i» 
possible that writings which are rlli 
by the instructed can be kept from fl 
uninstructed. If the teachers of m 
kind are to be cognisant of all t 
they ought to know, everything m 
be free to be written and publis 
without restraint. 

K, however, the mischievous ope 
tion of th« absence of free disevissi 



OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



18 



when the received opinioni are true, 
were confined to leaving men ignorant 
of^ the grounds of those opinions, it 
might he thought that this, if an intel- 
kfctoal, is no moral evil, and does not 
affect the worth of the opinions, regar- 
led in their influence on the character. 

e &ct, however, is, that not only the 
ds of the opinion are forgotten in 

e absence of discussion, but too often 
meaning of the opinion itself. The 
(words which convey it, cease to suggest 
; ideas, or suggest onlv a small portion 
• of those the^ were originally emploved 
!to communicate. Instead of a vivid 
conception and a living belief, there re- 
main only a few phrases retained by 
. rote ; or, if any part, the shell and husk 
only of the meaning is retained, the 
finer essence being lost. The great 
chapter in human history which this 
hci occupies and fills, cannot be too 
earnestly studied and meditated on. 

It is illustrated in the experience of 
almost all ethical doctrines and religious 
creeds. They are all full of meaning 
and yitality to those who originate 
them, and to the direct disciples of the 
originators. Their meaning continues 
to be felt in undiminished strength, 
and is perhaps brought out into even 
foller consciousness, so long as the 
itmggle lasts to giv^the doctrine or 
oreedan ascendancy over other creeds. 
At last it either prevails, and becomes 
the general opinion, or its progress 
■tops; itkeeps possession of the ground 
it has gained, but ceases to spread fur- 
ther. When either of these results has 
become apparent, controversy on the 
ralgeot flags, and gradually dies away. 
The doctrine has taken its place, if not 
at a received opinion, as one of the ad- 
mitted sects or divisions of opinion : 
those who hold it have generally in- 
herited, not adopted it ; and conversion 
from one of these doctrines to another, 
iMing now an exceptional fact, occupies 
Kitle place in the thoughts of their pro- 
fcesors. Instead of being, as at first, 
canstantly on the alert either to defend 
lliemselves against the world, or to 
Itin^ the world over to them, they have 
nbsided into acquiescence, and neither 
Jbton, when they can help it, to argu- 
[ UMBts against their creed, nor trovble 

i ■ 



dissentients (if there be such) with ar- 
guments in its favour. From this time 
may usually be dated the decline in the 
living power of the doctrine. We often 
hear the teachers of all creeds lament- 
ing the difficulty of keeping up in the 
minds of believers a lively apprehension 
of the truth which they nominally re- 
cognise, so that it may penetrate the 
feelings, and acquire a real mastery 
over the conduct. No such difficullr 
is complained of while the creed is still 
fighting for its existence : even the 
weaker combatants then know and fee} 
what they are fighting for, and th^ dif 
ference between it and other doctrines ; 
and in that period of every creed's ex- 
istence, not a few persons may be found, 
who have realizea its fundamental prin- 
ciples in all the forms of thought, nave 
weighed and considered them in all 
their important bearings, and have ex- 
perienced the full efiect on the charac- 
ter, which belief in that creed ought to 
produce in a mind thoroughly imbued 
with it. But when it has come to be 
an hereditary creed, and to be received 
passively, not actively — when the mind 
is no longer compelled, in the same de^ 
gree as at first, to exercise its vital 
powers on the questions which its be- 
lief presents to it, there is a progressive 
tendency to forget all of the belief ex- 
cept the formularies, or to give it a dull 
and torpid assent, as if accepting it on 
trust dispensed with the necessity of 
realizing it in consciousness, or testing 
it by personal experience ; until it al- 
most ceases to connect itself at ail with 
the inner life of the human being. 
Then are seen the cases, so frequent in 
this age of the world as almost to fom 
the majority, in which the creed re 
mains as it were outside the mind, in* 
crusting and petrifying it against all 
other influences addressed to the higher 
parts of our nature; manifesting its 

!)Ower by not suflering any fresh and 
iving conviction to get in, but itself 
doing nothing for the mind or hearty 
except standing sentinel over them to 
keep them vacant. 

^ To what an extent doctrines intrin- 
sicall^ fitted to make the deepest im- 
pression upon the mind may remain in 
it as dead beliefs, without bein^ e^n^ 



«l 



OP THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



^absed in the imagination, the feel- 
ings, or the understanding, is erempli- 
fied by the manner in which the majo- 
rity of believers hold the doctrines of 
Christianity. By Christianity I here 
mean what is accounted such by all 
churches and sects — the maxims and 
precepts contained in the New Testa- 
ment. These are considered sacred, 
and accepted as laws, by all professing 
Christians. Yet it is scarcely too much 
to say that not one Christian in a thou- 
sand guides or tests his individual con- 
duct oy reference to those laws. The 
standard to which he does refer it, is 
the custom of his nation, his class, or 
bis religious profession. He has thus, 
on the one hand, a collection of ethical 
maxims, which he believes to have been 
vouchsafed to him by infallible wisdom 
as rules for his government; and on 
the other a set of every-day jud^ents 
and practices, which go a certain length 
with some of those maxims, not so great 
a length with others, stand in direct 
opposition to some, and are, on the 
whole, a compromise between the Chris- 
tian creed and the interests and sug- 
gestions of worldlv life. To the first 
of these standards ne gives his homage; 
to the other his real allegiance. All 
Christians believe that the blessed are 
the poor and humble, and those who 
are ul-used by the world ; that it is 
easier for a camel to pass through the 
eye of a needle than for a rich man to 
enter the kingdom of heaven ; that they 
should judge not, lest they be judged ; 
that they should swear not at all ; that 
they should love their neighbour as 
themselves; that if one take their cloak, 
they should give him their coat also ; 
that they should take no thought for 
the morrow ; that if they would be per- 
fect they should sell all that they have 
and give it to the poor. They are not 
insincere when they sav that they be- 
lieve these things. They do believe 
them, as peonle believe what they have 
always heard lauded and never discus- 
sed. But in the sense of that living 
belief which regulates conduct, they be- 
lieve these doctiines just up to the 
point to which it is usual to act upon 
them. The doctrines in their integrity 
tie serviceable to pelt adversaries with; 



and it is understood that they are to 
put forward (when possible) as the rei> 
sons for whatever people do that th^ 
think laudable. But any one who i» 
minded them that the maxims requia 
an infinity of things which they new 
even think of doing, would gain n^ 
thing but to be classed among thoii 
very unpopular characters who affed 
to be better than other people. Th| 
doctrines have no hold on ordinary b^ 
lie vers — are not a power in their mindt 
They have an habitual respect for tin 
sound of them, but no feeling which 
spreads from the words to the thioAi 
signified, and forces the mind to tan 
them in, and make them conform to tk 
formula. Whenever conduct is coe* 
cerned, they look round for Mr. A aaH 
B to direct them how far to go in obey 
ing Christ. 

Now we may be well assured thtf 
the case was not thus, but far other 
wise, with the early Christians. Had 
it been thus, Christianity never wooU 
have expanded from an obscure sectd 
the despised Hebrews into the religiei 
of the Roman empire. When their 
enemies said, 'See how these Ohm 
tians love one another ' (a remark not 
likely to be made by anybody nowl 
they assuredly had a much liveUer feet 
ing of the meaning of their creed thm 
they have ever haa since. And to tldi 
cause, probably, it is chiefly owing tbil 
Christianity now makes so little pn^ 
gross in extending its domain, and ailv 
eighteen centuries, is still nearly c^ 
fined to Europeans and the descendaib 
of Europeans. Even with the stric% 
religious, who are much in eam«l 
about their doctrines, and attach I 
greater amount of meaning to many ll 
them than people in general, it co* 
monly happens that the part which > 
thus comparatively active in their 
minds is that which was made by Ci^ 
vin, or Knox, or some such person mui 
nearer in character to themselves. 1%| 
sayings of Christ coexist passively i 
their minds, producing hardly any i 
feet beyond wnat is caused by mere '" 
telling to words so amiable and bla 
There are many reasons, doubtless, w 
doctrines which are the badge of a 
retain more of their vitality than th< 



, 






OP THE MBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. t5 



common to all lecogniBed sects, and why 
munne pains are taken by teachers to 
keep tiieir meaning aHve ; but one rea- 
■on oertainlj is, thai the peculiar doc- 
trines are more qaestioned, and have 
to be oftener defended against open 
gainsayers. Both teachers and learners 
ffo to ^ sleep at their post, as soon as 
inere is no enem^ in the field. 

The same thmg holds true, gene- 
lally speaking, of all traditional doc- 
trines — ^those of prudence and know- 
ledge of life, as well as of morals or 
religion. All languages and litera- 
tures are full of general observations 
on Ufe, both as to what it is, and how 
tp conduct oneself in it ; observations 
whioli everybody knows, which every- 
body repeats, or hears with acquies- 
cence, which are received as truisms, 
vet of which most people first truly 
learn the meaning, when experience, 
generally of a pamful kind, has made 
It a reality to them. How often, when 
smarting under some unforeseen mis- 
fortune or disappointment, does a per- 
son call to mind some proverb or com- 
mon saying, familiar to him all his 
life, the meaning of which, if he had 
ever before felt it as he does now, 
would have saved him from the cala- 
mity. There are indeed reasons for 
this, other than the absence of discus- 
sion : there are many truths of which 
the full meaning cannot be realized, 
until personal experience has brought 
it home. But much more of the mean- 
ing even o( these would have been 
onderetood, and what was understood 
woold have been far more deeply im- 
piessed on the mind, if the man had 
been accustomed to hear it argued pro 
fund eon by people who did understand 
it. The ratal tendency of mankind to 
leave off thinking about a thing when 
it is no longer doubtful, is the cause 
of half their errors. A cotemporary 
witbor has well spoken of * the deep 
■lumber of a decided opinion.* 

But what ! (it may be asked) Is the 
Absence of unanimity an indispensable 
Qondition of true Imowledge? Is it 
Mcessary that some part of mankind 
dbould persist in error, to enable any 
t| realize the truth ? Does a belief 

; niMe to be real and vital as soon as it 

I 

I 



is generally received — and is a propo- 
sition never thoroughly understood 
and felt unless some doubt of it re- 
mains? As soon as mankind have 
unanimously accepted a truth, does 
the truth perish within them? The 
highest aim and best result of im« 
proved intelligence, it has hitherto 
been thought, is to unite mankind 
more and more in the acknowledg 
ment of all important truths : and does 
the intelligence only last as long as it 
has not acnieved its object ? Do the 
fruits of eonquest perish by the very 
completeness of the victory ? 

I affirm no such thing. As man- 
kind improve, the number of doctrines 
which are no longer disputed or doubted 
will be constantly on the increase: 
and the well-being of mankind may 
almost be measured by the number 
and gravity of the truths which have 
reached the point of being uncontested. 
The cessation, on one question after 
another, of serious controversy, is one 
of the necessary incidents of the con- 
solidation of opinion ; a consolidation 
as salutary in t ue case of true opinions, 
as it is aangerous and noxious when 
the opinions are erroneous. But 
though this gradual narrowing of the 
bounds of diversity of opinion is neces- 
sary in both senses of the term, being 
at once inevitable and indispensable^ 
we are not therefore obliged to conclude 
that all its consequences must be bene 
ficial. The loss of so important an aid 
to the intelligent and livmg apprehen- 
sion of a truth, as is afforded by the ne- 
cessity of explaining it to, or defending 
it against, opponents, though not suf- 
ficient to outweigh, is no trifling draw- 
back from, the benefit of its universal 
recognition. Where this advantage 
can no longer be had, I confess I 
should like to see the teachers of man- 
kind endeavouring to provide a sub- 
stitute for it; some contrivance for 
making the difficulties of the question 
as present to the leamer^s conscious- 
ness, as if they were pressed upon him 
by a dissentient champion, eager for 
his conversion. 

But instead of seeking contrivances 
for this purpose, they have lost those 
they formerly had. The Socratic dis' 



U OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



lecticB, so magnificentlj exemplified in 
ihe dialogues of Plato, were a contri- 
vance of this description. They were 
essentially a negative discussion of the 
great questions of philosophy and life, 
directed with consummate skill to the 
purpose of convincing any one who 
had merely adopted the commonplaces 
of received opmion, that he did not 
understand the subject — that he as 
yet attached no definite meaning to 
the doctrines he professed; in crder 
that, becoming aware of his ignorance, 
he might be put in the way to obtain 
a stable belief, resting on a clear ap- 

Srehension both of the meaning of 
octrines and of their evidence. The 
school disputations of the Middle Ages 
had a somewhat similar object. They 
were intended to make sure that the 
pupil understood his own opinion, and 
(by necessary correlation) the opinion 
opposed to it, and could enforce the 
grounds of the one and confute those 
of the other. These last-mentioned 
contests had indeed the incurable de- 
fect, that the premises appealed to 
were taken from authority, not from 
reason; and, as a discipline to the 
mind, they were in every respect infe- 
rior to the powerful dialectics which 
formed the intellects of the ' Socratici 
viri :* but the modem mind owes far 
more to both than it is generally wil- 
ling to admit, and the present modes 
of education contain notning which in 
the smallest degree supplies the place 
either of the one or of the other. A 
person who derives all his instiiiction 
from teachers or books, even if he 
escape the besetting temptation of 
contenting himself with cram, is under 
no compulsion to hear both sides ; ac- 
cordingiv it is far from a frequent 
accomplishment, even among thinlcers, 
to know both sides ; and the weakest 
part of what everybody says in defence 
of his opinion, is what he intends as a 
repiv to antagonists. It is the fashion 
of the present time to disparage nega- 
tive logic — that which points out 
weaknesses in theory or errors ^ in 
practice, without establishing positive 
truths. Such negative criticism would 
indeed be poor enough as an ultimate 
result; but as a means to attaining 



any positive knowledge or convictifl 
worthy the name, it cannot be valudl- 
too highly ; and until people are agail 
systematically trained to it, there w§ 
be few great thinkers, and a low genfr 
ral average of intellect, in any bat ill 
mathematical and physical depaii 
ments of speculation. On any oth« 
subject no one's opinions deserve tki 
name of knowledge, except so &r ii 
he has either had forced upon him ly Ijj 
others, or gone through of himself ill 
tame mental process which would nail 
been required of him in carrying m 
an active controversy with opponente 
That, therefore, which when absent, it 
is so indispensable, but so difficult, ti 
create, how worse than absurd it is ti 
forego, when spontaneously offering ik> 
self I If there are an^ persons whi 
contest a received opinion, or who w9 
do so if law or opimon will let theo^ 
let us thank them for it, open <m 
minds to listen to them, and rejoiM 
that there is some one to do for % 
what we otherwise ought, if we ham 
any regard for either the certainty « 
the vitality of our convictions, to k 
with much greater labour for om 
selves. 



It still remains to speak of oneif 
the principal causes which make divH^ 
sity of opinion advantageous, and lA 
continue to do so until mankind shil 
have entered a stage of intellect«l 
advancement which at present seen 
at an incalculable distance. We ban 
hitherto 'Bonsidered only two possible 
ties: that the received opinion nnf 
be false, and some other opinion, c» 
sequentlv, true ; or that, the receinl 
opinion being true, a conflict with til 
opposite error is essential to a cletf 
apprehension and deep feeling of Ik 
truth. But there is a commoner cm 
than either of these ; when the col' 
flicting doctrines, instead of being oil 
true and the other false, share ^ 
truth between them ; and the noncd^ 
forming opinion is needed to sup|i| 
the remainder of the truth, of whS 
the received doctrine embodies only* 
part. Popular opinions, on subje " 
not palpable to sense, are often tr 
b*jt seldom or never the whole tru 







OF THE LIBERTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



n 



' Tbej are a part of .the tnith ; eome- 
'. tfanes a gp^ater, sometimes a smaller 
' Murt, bot exaggerated, distorted, and 
' oqoined from the truths by which 
' they ought to be accompanied and 
Smited. Heretical opinions, on the 
other hand, are generally some of these 
•oppressed and neglected truths, bnrst- 
uig the bonds which kept them down, 
and either seeking reconciliation with 
the truth contained in the common 
•pinion, or fronting it as enemies, 
and setting themselves up, with 
mmilar excmsiTeness, as the whole 
troth. The latter case is hitherto the 
most ireqnent, as, in the human mind, 
one-sidediiess has always been the 
role, and many-sidedness the excep- 
tion. Hence, eyen in revolutions of 
opinion, one part of the truth usually 
■ets while another rises. Even pro- 
gi'eas, which ought to superadd, for the 
moat part only substitutes, one partial 
iind incomplete truth for another ; im- 
proyement ' consisting chiefly in this, 
that the new fi'agmcnt of truth is more 
wanted, more adapted to the needs of 
the time, than that which it displaces. 
Such being the partial character of 
pi*eyailing opinions, even when resting 
on a true foundation, every opinion 
which embodies somewhat oi the 
portion of truth which the common 
opinion omits, ought to be considered 
precious, with wnatever amount of 
error and confusion that truth may be 
Uended. No sober iudge of human 
affairs will feel bouna to be indignant 
because those who force on our notice 
tmihs which we should otherwise have 
overlooked, overlook some of those 
which we see. Bather, he will think 
that to long as popular truth is one- 
sided, it is more desirable than other- 
wise that unpopular truth should have 
one-sided assertors too; such being 
usually the most energetic, and the 
most ukely to compel reluctant atten- 
tion to ihe fragment of wisdom which 
dbsy proclaim as if it were the whole. 
Thus, in the eighteenth century, 
when nearly all the instructed, and all 
those of the uninstructed who were led 
W them, were lost in admiration of 
vhat is called civilization, and of the 
Mrtek of modem science, literature. 



and philosophy, and while greatly 
overrating tne amount of unlilceness 
between the men of modem and those 
of ancient times, indulged the belief 
that the whole of the difference was in 
their own favour; with what a salu- 
tary shock did the paradoxes of Rous- 
seau explode like oombshells in the 
midst, dislocating the compact mass 
of one-sided opinion, and forcing its 
elements to recombine in a better form 
and with additional ingredients. Not 
that the current opinions were on the 
whole farther from the truth than 
Bousseau^s were; on the contrary, 
they were nearer to it; they contained 
more of positive truth, and very muck 
less of error. Nevertheless there \&j 
in Rousseau's doctrine, and has floated 
down the stream of opinion along with 
it, a considerable amount of exactly 
those truths which the popular opinion 
wanted ; and these are the deposit 
which was left behind when the flood 
subsided. The superior worth of sim- 
plicity of life, the enervating and de- 
moralizing effect of the trammels and 
hypocrisies of artificial society, are 
ideas which have never been entirely 
absent firom cultivated minds since 
Bousseau wrote ; and they will in time 
produce their due effect, though at 
present needing to be asserted as 
much as ever, and to be asserted by 
deeds, for words, on this subject, have 
nearly exhausted their power. 

In politics, again, it is almost a 
commonplace, that a party of order or 
stability, and a party of progress or re- 
form, are both necesRary elements of a 
healthy state of political life; until 
the one or the other shall have so en- 
larged its mental grasp as to be a 
party equally of order and of progress, 
knowing and distinguishing what is 
fit to be preserved from what ought to 
be swept away. Each of these modes 
of thiuKing derives its utih'ty from the 
deficiencies of the other ; but it is in a 
great measure the opposition of the 
other that keeps each within the limits 
of reason and sanity. Unless opinions 
favourable to democracy and to aris> 
tocracy, to property and to equality, 
to co-operation and to competition, to 
luxury and to abstinence^ to »)ciaUl^ 



28 OF TRR LIBERT If OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



and individuality, to liberty and dis- 
cipline, and all the other standing an- 
tagonisms of practical life, are ex- 
pressed with equal freedom, and 
enforced and defended with equal 
talent and energy, there is no chance 
of both elements obtaining their due ; 
one scale is sure to go up, and the 
other down. Truth, in the great prac- 
tical concerns of life, is so much a 
question of the reconciling and com- 
bining of opposites, that very few have 
minds sufficiently capacious and impar- 
tial to make the adjustment with an 
approach to correctness, and it has to 
be made by the rough process of a 
itniggle between combatants fighting 
under hostile banners. On any of the 
^at open questions just enumerated, 
if either of the two opinions has a 
better claim than the other, not 
merely to be tolerated, but to be en- 
couraged and countenanced, it is the 
one which happens at the particular 
time and place to be in a minority. 
That is the opinion which, for the 
time being, represents the neglected 
interests, tne side of human well-being 
which is in danger of obtaining less 
than its share. 1 am aware that there 
is not, in this country, any intolerance 
of differences of opinion on most of 
these topics. They are adduced to 
show, by admitted and multiplied ex- 
amples, the universality of the fact, 
that only through diversity of opinion 
is there, in the existing state of human 
intellect, a chance of fair play tc all 
sides of the truth. When there are 
persons to be found, who form an ex- 
ception to the apparent unanimity of 
the world on any subject, even if the 
world is in the right, it is always pro- 
bable that dissentients have Some- 
thing worth hearing to say for them- 
selves, and that truth would lose 
something by their silence. 

It may be objected, ' But some re- 
ceived principles, especially on the 
highest and most vital subjects, are 
more than half-truths. The Christian 
morality, for instance, is the whole 
truth on that subject, and if any one 
teaches a morality which varies from 
it, he is wholly in error.' As this is 
o/bU cM8e§ the moet important in prac- 



tice, none can be fitter to test the goi 
ral maxim. But before pronounci 
what Christian morality is or is not, 
would be desirable to decide what! 
meant by Christian morality. Ifil 
means the morality of the New Teit» 
ment, I wonder that any *one who iif 
rives his knowledge of this from Ai 
book itself, can suppose that it was afr 
nounced, or intended, as a complell 
doctrine of morals. I'he Gospel alwaji 
refers to a pre-existing morality, an 
confines its precepts to the particulaa 
in which that morality was to be oo^ 
rected, or superseded by a wider aiil 
higher ; expressing itself^ moreover, ii 
terms most general, often impossibleti 
be interpreted literally, and possessi^ 
rather tne impressivencss of poetry m 
eloquence than the precision of legii^ 
tion. To extract from it a bo^ d 
ethical doctiine, has never been pow 
ble without eking it out from the 011 
Testament, that is, from a system el^ 
borate indeed, but in many respeoii 
barbarous, and intended only for a hm^ 
barons people. St. Paul, a declarrf 
enemy to this Judaical mode of int» 
preting the doctrine and filling up tkl 
scheme of his Master, equally assunui 
a pre-existing morality, namely thatil 
the Greeks and Romans ; and his a^ 
vice to Christians is in a great measnn 
a system of accommodation to that; 
even to the extent of giving an apfk 
rent sanction to slavery. What il 
called Christian, but should rather II 
termed theological, morality, was i# 
the work of Christ or the Apostles, W 
is of much later origin, having beB 
gradually built up by the Catbcll 
church of the first five centuries, lii 
though not implicitly adopted by i^: 
dems and Protestants, has been miril 
less modified by them than might haN 
been expected. For the most pt^ 
indeed, they have contented the* 
selves with cutting ofi* the additi#l 
which had been made to it in the "Mt 
die Ages, each sect supplying the pl^jk 
by fresh additions, adapted to its oif 
cnaracter and tendencies. That m 
kind owe a great debt to this morali 
and to its early teachers, I should be i 
last person to deny; but I do ni 
scruple to say of it that it is, in ma 



I 

■ 



OF THE LIBEKTt OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 19 



iinportant points, incomplete and one- 
lided, and that unlesg ideas and feel- 
faun, not sanctioned by it, had oon- 
tnbnted to the formation of European 
life and character, human affairs would 
have been in a worse condition than 
iheY now are. Christian morality (so 
ealled) has aJl the characters of a re- 
action ; it is, in great part, a protest 
•gainst Paganism. Its ideal is nega- 
tiTe rather than positive; passive 
rather than active; Innocence rather 
than Nobleness ; Abstinence from Evil, 
rather than energetic Pursuit of Qood ; 
ni its precepts (as has been well said) 
'then shidt nor predominates unduly 
over 'thou shalt.' In its horror of 
sensuality, it made an idol of asce- 
tidsm, which has been gradually com- 
promised away into one of legality. It 
Dolds out the hope of heaven and the 
threat of hell, as the appointed and ap- 
propriate motives to a virtuous life: 
in tnis falling far below the best of the 
ancients, and doing what lies in it to 
give to numan morality an essentially 
■elfish character, by disconnecting eacn 
man's feelings of duty from the inte- 
rests of his rellow-creatures, except so 
fiur as a self-interested inducement is 
offered to him for consulting them. 1%, 
b essentially a doctrine of passives- 
obedience ; it inculcates submission to 
, all authorities found established ; who 
^ bdeed are not to be actively obeyed 
when they command what rehgion for- 
bids, bat who are not to be resisted, 
[ fiur less rebelled against, for any amount 
I of wrong to ourselves. And while, in 
the morality of the best Pagan na- 
tions, duty to the State holds even a 
disproportionate place, infringing on 
the jost liberty of the individual; in 
imrely Christian etliics, that grand de- 
partment of duty is scarcely noticed or 
aeknowledged. It is in the Koran, not 
ISm New Testament, that we read the 
ttiaaum — *A ruler who appoints any 
Hum to an office, when there is in his 
dcminions another man better <]^ualified 
iH* it, sins against GU)d and a^mst the 
State.* What little recognition the 
IdMt of obligation to the public obtains 
ia modem morality, is derived from 
Qreek and Roman sources, not from 
CkristiaQ ; as, even in the morality of 



private life, whatever exists of ma^na 
nimity, highmindedness, personal dig- 
nity, even the sense of honour, is 
derived from the purely human, not 
the religious part of our education, and 
never could have grown out of a 
standard of ethics in which the only 
worth, professedly recognised, is that 
of obedience. 

I am as far as any one frx)m pretend- 
ing that these defects are necessarily 
inherent in the Christian ethics, in 
every manner in which it can be con* 
ceived, or that the many requisites of 
a complete moral doctrine which it 
does not contain, do not admit of being 
reconciled with it. Far less would I 
insinuate this of the doctrines and pre- 
cepts of Christ himself. I believe that 
the sayings of Christ are all, that I can 
see any evidence of their having been 
intended to be ; that they are irrecon> 
cilable with nothing which a com- 
prehensive morality requires; that 
everything which is excellent in ethics 
may be brought within them, with no 
greater violence to their language than 
has been done to it by all who have 
attempted to deduce frx)m them any 
practical system of conduct what- 
ever. But it is quite consistent with 
this, to believe that they contain, and 
were meant to contain, only a part of 
the truth ; that many essential elements 
of the highest morality are among the 
things wnich are not provided for, nor 
intended to be provided for, in the re- 
corded deliverances of the Founder of 
Christianity, and which have been 
entirely tnrown aside in the system 
of ethics erected on the basis of those 
deliverances by the Christian Chureh. 
And this being so, I think it a great 
error to persist in attempting to find in 
the Chnstian doctrine that complete 
rule for our guidance, which its author 
intended it to sanction and enforce, 
but only partially to provide. I be- 
have, too, that tnis narrow theoiy is 
becoming a grave practical evil, de- 
tracting ^atiy from the moral train- 
ing and instruction, which so many 
well-meaning persons are now at length 
exerting themselves to promote. I 
much fear that by attempting to form 
the mind and feelings on an exclu 



30 



OF THE MBBRTY OF THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION. 



■iTely religioiui type, and discarding 
those secular standards (as for want of 
a better name they may be called) 
which heretofore co-existed with and 
supplemented the Christian ethics, re- 
ceiving some of its spirit, and infusing 
into it some of theirs, there will result, 
and is even now resulting, a low, 
abject, servile type of character, which, 
submit itself as it may to what it 
deems the Supreme Will, is incapable 
of rising to er sympathizing in the 
conception of Supreme Goodness. I 
believe that other ethics tl^n any 
which can be evolved from exclusively 
Christian sources, must exist side by 
side with Christian ethics to produce 
the moral regeneration of mankind; 
and that the Christian system is no 
exception to the rule, that in an im- 
perfect state of the human mind, the 
mterests of truth require a diversity of 
opinions. It is not necessary that in 
ceasing to ignore the moral truths not 
contained in Christianity, men should 
ignore any of those which it does con- 
tain. Such pi-ejudice, or oversight, 
when it occurs, is altogether an evil ; 
but it is one from which we cannot 
hope to be always exempt, and must 
be regarded as the price paid for an in- 
estimable good. The exclusive preten- 
sion made by a part of the truth to be 
the whole, must and ought to be pro- 
tested against; and if a reactionary 
impulse should make the protestors 
unjust in their turn, this one-sidedness, 
like the other, may be lamented, but 
must be tolerated. If Christians would 
teach infidels to be just to Christianity, 
they should themselves be just to in- 
fidelity. It can do truth no service to 
blink the fact, known to all who have 
the most ordinary acquaintance with 
literaiy history, that a large portion of 
the noblest and most valuable moral 
teaching has been the work, not only of 
men who did not know, but of men who 
knew and rejected, the Christian faith. 
I do not pretend that the most un- 
limited use of the freedom of enunciat- 
ing all possible opinions would put an 
end to the evils of religious cr philo- 
sophical sectarianism. Every truth 
wnich men of narrow capacity are in 
amruegt abov^ it sure to be asserted, I 



inculcated, and in many ways v 
acted on, as if no other truth existrf' 
in the world, or at all events none tU 
could limit or qualify the first. 1 » 
knowledge that the tendency of A 
opinions to become sectarian is Ml 
cured by the freest discussion, but ■ 
often heightened and exaceri^alai 
thereby ; the truth which on^ht ii 
have been, but was not, seen, being m 
jected all the more violently becaiM 
proclaimed by j^rsons regarded as of- 
ponents. But it is not on the imps* 
sioned partisan, it is on the calmer airi 
more disinterested bystander, that tihii 
collision of opinions works its salutarf 
eflect. Not the violent conflict betweti 
parts of the truth, but the quiet m» 
pression of half of it, is the formidaoiL 
evil ; there is always hope when pe(^ 
are forced to listen to both sides ; it ii 
when they attend only to one thit 
errors harden into prejudices, and truti 
itself ceases to have the effect of truth, 
by being exaggerated into falsehoei 
And since there are few mental atbi* 
butes more rare than that jucUciil 
faculty which can sit m intelligoil 
judgment between two sides of a qiiif> 
tion, of which only one is representsi 
by an advocate before it, trutti has m 
chance but in proportion as every sill 
of it, every opinion which emcMxGs 
any fraction of the truth, not only finll 
advocates, but is so advocated as toll 
listened to. 

We have now recognised the ne^ 
sity to the mental well-being of m0 
kind (on which all their other wil 
being depends) of freedom of opinio 
and freedom of the expression ■ 
opinion, on four .distinct grounlll 
which we will now briefly recapii» 
late. 

First, if any opinion is compelle4J| 
silence, that opinion may, for au 
we can certainly know, be true, 
deny this is to assume our own infi 
bility. 

Secondly, though the silenced opi 
be an error, it may, and very commo] 
does, contain a portion of truth ; 
since the general or prevailing opiu 
on any subject is rarely or never 
whole truth, it is only by the coUisioni 



\f 
I 

i 
il 
\ 

I 
i 

i 
i 
I 

i 




OP THE LIBERTY OP TflOUaHT AND DISCUSSION. 



idverse opinions that the remainder of 
the truth has any chance of being sup- 
plied. 

Thirdly, even if the received opinion 
96 not only true, but the whole truth ; 
inless it is suffered to be, and actuallv 
Is, vigorously and earnestly contesteo, 
it wiU, by most of those who receive it, 
^ held in the manner of a prejudice, 
nrith little comprehension or feeling of 
its rational grounds. And not only 
this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the 
ioctrine itself will be in danger of 
being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived 
of its vital effect on the character and 
Bondact : the dogma becoming a mere 
formal profession, inefficacious for good, 
bnt cumbering the ground, and pre- 
venting the growth of any real and 
heartfelt conviction, from reason or 
personal experience. 

Before quitting the subject of firee- 
dom of opmion, it is fit to take some 
notice of those who say, that the free 
expression of all opinioDs should be per- 
mitted, on condition that the manner 
be temperate, and do not pass the 
bounds of fair discussion. Much mi^ht 
be said on the impossibility of fixing 
wXere these supposed bounds are to be 
placed; for if the test be offence to 
those whose opinions are attacked, I 
think experience testifies that this 
offence is given whenever the attack is 
telling and powerful, and that every 
opponent who pushes them hard, and 
whom they find it difficult to answer, 
appears to them, if he shows any 
•titmg feeling on the subject, an in- 
temperate opponent. But this, though 
tn unpoi-tant consideration in a prac- 
tical point of view, merges in a more 
(undAmental objection. Undoubtedly 
the manner of asserting an opinion, 
BV8B though it be a true one, may be 
Very objectionable, and may justly 
buHUr severe censure. But the prin- 
•idaI (fences of the kind are sudh as 
It 10 mostlv impossible, unless by acci- 
itental aeli^betrayal, to bring home to 
boBTiction. The gravest of them is, 
U^ vrgne sophistical ly, to suppress facts 
•v arguments, to misstate the elements 
pf ^e case, or misrepresent the oppo- 
■||» opinion. But all this, even to the 
agfi^vated degree, is so con- 



tinually done in perfect good faith, by 
persons who are not considered, and in 
many other respects may not deserve 
to be considered, ignorant or incom- 
petent, that it is rarely possible, on 
adequate grounds, conscientiously to 
stamp the misrepresentation as morally 
culpable ; and still less could law pre- 
sume to interfere with this kina of 
controversial misconduct. With re- 
gard to what is commonly meant by 
mtemperate discussion, namely invec- 
tive, sarcasm, personali^, and the 
like, the denunciation of these weapons 
would deserve more sympathy if it 
were ever proposed to interdict them 
equally to both sides; but it is only 
desired to restrain the employment of 
them against the prevailing opiiuon : 
against the unprevailing they may not 
only be used without general disap- 
proval, but will be likely to obtain for 
him who uses them the praise of honest 
zeal and righteous indignation. Yet 
whatever mischief arises from their 
use, is greatest when they are em- 
ployed against the comparatively do- 
fenceless; and whatever unfair ad 
vantage can be derived by any opinio)r 
from mis mode of asserting it, accrue* 
almost exclusively to received opinion? 
The worst offence of this kind whicl 
can be committed by a polemic, is tc 
stigmatize those who hola the contrary 
opinion as bad and immoral men. To 
calumny of this sort, those who hold 
any unpopular opinion are peculiarly 
exposed, oecause they are in general 
few and uninfluential, and nobody but 
themselves feels much interested in 
seeing justice done them ; but this 
weapon is, from the nature of the case, 
denied to those who attack a prevailing 
opinion : they can neither use it with 
safety to themselves, nor, if they could, 
would it do anything but recoil op ' 
their own cause. In general, opinioiLS 
contrary to those commonly received 
can only obtain a hearing by studied 
moderation of language, and the most 
cautious avoidance of unnecessary 
offence, from which they hardly ever 
deviate even in a slight degree with- 
out losing ground : wmle unmeasured 
vituperation employed on the side ol 
the prevailing opinion^ reaU^ dmiik 



32 



OF INDIVIDtTALITY, AS ONE OF 



deter pe<;ple from professing contrary 
opinions, and from listening to those 
who profess them. For the interest, 
therefore, of truth and justice, it is far 
more important to restrain this enf- 
plejmentof vituperative language than 
the other ; and, for example, if it were 
necessary to choose, there would be 
much more need to discourage offensive 
attacks on infidelity than on religion. 
It b, however, obvious that law and 
authority have no business with re- 
straining either, while opinion ought, 
in every instance, to determine its 
verdict by the circumstances of the in- 
dividual case ; condemning every one, 
on whichever side of the argument he 
places himself, in whose mode of ad- 
vocacy either want of candour, or ma- 



lignity, bigotry, or intoleianoe of 
mg manifest themselves; but 
inrerring these vices from the 
which a person takes, though it 
contrary side of the question to 
own: and giving merited honou 
every one, whatever opinion he i 
hold, who has calmness to see 
honesty to state what his oppoE=B( 
and their opinions really are, exc^ g 
rating nothing to their discredit, Bf et 
ing nothing back which tells, ozr* a 
be supposed to tell, in their fa-^^^m 
This is the real morality of public dk 
cussion : and if often violated, ^ ^i 
happy to think that there are xn«f | 
controversialists who to a great eztut " 
observe it, and a still greater numiff , 
who oonscientiously strive towards k 



CHAFTEB m. 



OP INDTVIDVALITT, AS ONB OF THB ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEnrO. 



Suon being the reasons which make it 
imperative that human beings should 
be free to form opinions, and to express 
their opinions without reserve; and 
such the baneful conseouences to the 
intellectual, and througn that to the 
moral nature of man, unless this liberty 
is either conceded, or asserted in spite 
of prohibition; let us next examine 
whether the same reasons do not re- 
quire that men should be free to act 
upon their opinions — to carry these 
out in their lives, without hindrance, 
either physical or moral, from their 
fellow-men, so long as it is at their own 
risk and peril. Tnis last proviso is of 
course inaispensable. No one pretends 
that actions should be as free as opi- 
nions. On the contrary, even oi)inions 
lose their immunity, when the circum- 
stances in which they are expressed 
are such as to constitute their expres- 
sion a positive instigation to some mis- 
chievous act. An opinion that corn- 
dealers are starvers of the poor, or that 
private property is robbery, ought to 
be unmolested when simply circulated 
throu^ the press, bat may jusUy in- 



cur punishment when delivered oral^ 
to an excited mob assembled befiM 
the house of a corn-dealer, or n^ 
handed about among the same mob ii 
the form of a placard. Acts, of wbi^ 
ever kind, which, without justifitUi 
cause, do harm to others, may be, wA 
in the more important cases absololrif 
require to be, controlled by the vmr 
vourable sentiments, and, when niai 
ful, by the active interference of nafr 
kind. The libertpr of the indiviW 
must be thus far hmited; he mustMl 
make himself a nuisance to other peofk 
But if he refrains from molesting ottei 
in what concerns them, and merely Mb 
according to his own inclination «! 
judgment in things which concern life 
sel^the same reasons which show iU 
opinion should be free, prove also d# 
he should be allowed, without moleii^ 
tion, to carry his opinions into pracli 
at his own cost. That mankind m 
not infallible ; that their truths, for III 
most part, are only half-truths; i3d 
unity of opinion, unless resulting frtf 
the fullest and freest comparison off lit 
posito opinions, is not desirable, m\ 



K 



THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING. 



^ermty not ak evil, bat a g^ood. until 
^i^nd are much more capable than 

pi'eaent of recogniBing all sides of 
' trotb, are principles applicable to 
?'s modes of action, not less than to 
.Y* opinions. As it is useful that 
^le mankind are imperfect there 
uld be di&rent opinions, so it is 
^ there should be different experi- 
'^ta of living ; that free scope should 
JS\ven to varieties of character, short 
^niury to others ; and that the worth 

Afferent modes of life should be 
^Ved practically, when any one thinks 
' to try them. It is desirable, in 
^<^ Ihat in things which do not pri- 
tftiily concern others, individuality 
tioold assert itself. Where, not the per- 
il's own character, but the traditions 
f customs of other people are the rule 
f conduct, there is wanting oue of the 
rincipal ingredients of human happi- 
ess, and quite the chief ingredient of 
idividual and social progress. 

In maintaining this principle, the 
reatest difficulty to be encountered 
)e8 not lie in the appreciation of 
eans towards an acknowledged end, 
it in the indifference of persons in 
tneral to the end itself. If it were 
It that the free development of indi- 
duality is one of the leading essen- 
ils of well-being ; that it is not onl^ 

co-ordinate element with all that is 
ssignated by the terms civilissation, 
struction, eaucation, culture, but is 
self a necessaiy part and condition of 
1 those things; there would be no 
inger that liberty should be under- 
dued, and the adjustment of the 
nmdaries between it and social con- 
ol would present no extraordinary 
fficulty. But the evil is, that indi- 
dual spontaneity is hardly recognised 
f the common modes of thinking, as 
iving any intrinsic worth, or deserv- 
g any regard 3n its own account. 
M nmjority, being satisfied with the- 
a^ of mankind as they now are (for 

M they who make them what they 
6), cannot comprehend why those 
ays should not be good enough for 
reiybody ; and what is more, sponta- 
iity forms no part of the ideal of the 
i^rity of moral and social reformers, 
It k rather looked on with jealousy, 



as a troublesome and perhaps rebelUoui 
obstruction to the general acceptance 
of what these reformers, in their own 
judgment, think would be best for 
mankind. Few persouR, out of Qer- 
many, even comprehend the meaning 
of the doctrine wliich Wilhelm tob 
Humboldt, so eminent both as a «<^ 
vant and as a politician, made the 
text of a treatise — that 'the end of 
man, or that which is prescribed by the 
eternal or immutable mctates of reason, 
and not suggested by vague and tran- 
sient desires, is the highest and most 
harmonious development of his powers 
U) a complete and consistent whole;' 
that, therefore, the object 'towardr 
which every human being must ceasf 
lessly direct his efforts, and on whicVi 
especially those who design to influence 
their fellow-men must ever keep their 
eyes, is the individuality of power and 
development ;' that for this there are 
two^ requisites, ' freedom, and yariety 
of situations ;' and that from the union 
of these arise 'individual vigour and 
manifold diversity,' wl^ch combine 
themselyes in 'originality.'*^ 

Little, however^ as |>eople are accus- 
tomed to a doctnne Uke that of Von 
Humboldt, and surprising as it may 
be to them to find so high a yadue at- 
tached to individuality, the question, 
one must nevertheless think, can only 
be one of degree. No one's idea of ex- 
cellence in conduct is that people 
should do absolutely nothing but copy 
one another. No one would assert that 
people ought not to put into their mode 
of fife, and into the conduct of their 
concerns, any impress whatever of their 
own judgment, or of their own indivi- 
dual character. On the other hand, it 
would be absurd to pretend that people 
ouffht to five as if nothing whatever 
had been known in the world before 
they oame into it; as if experience 
had as yet done nothing towards show- 
ing that one mode of existence, or of 
conduct, is preferable to another. No-' 
body denies that people should be so 
taught and trained in youth, as to 
know and benefit by tiie ascertatutd 

• Tht Spkert and DuUea qf OovemmnU, 
from the German of Baron Wilhelm to* 
UuiubolJt, pp. 11- IS. 



OF INDIVroUALTrY, AS ONE OF 



resijlts (if hmnMi experience. But it 
]« ike privilege and proper oondition of 
a huinaD bein^, arrived at the maturity 
of his faculties, to use and interpret 
experience in his own waj. It is for 
him to find out what part of recorded 
experience is properiy applicable to his 
cwn circumstances and character. The 
traditions and customs of other people 
are/to a certain extent, eyidence of what 
their experience has taught them; pre- 
sumptive evidence, and as such^ htrve 
a claim to his deference : but, m the 
first place, their experience may be too 
narrow ; or they may not have inter- 
preted it rightly, ^oondly, their in- 
terpretation of experience may be cor- 
rect, but unsu^ble to him. Customs 
are made for customary oironm- 
•tanoes, and customary characters; 
and lus circumstances or his character 
may be uncustomary. Thirdly, though 
tiie customs be botn good as customs, 
and suitable to him, yet to conform to 
custom, merely as custom, does not 
educate or develop in him any of the 

aualities which are the distinctive en- 
cwment of a human being. The hu- 
man faculties of perception, judgment, 
discriminative feeling, mentsl activity, 
and even moral preferenoe, are exer- 
sised only in making a choice. He 
who does anything biscause it is the 
custom, makes no choice. He gains 
no practice either in discerning or in 
desiring what is best. The mental 
and moral, like the muscular powers, 
are improved only b^ being used. The 
Acuities are called into no exercise by 
doing a thing merely because others do 
it, no more uian by believing a thing 
only because others believe it. If the 
grounds of an opinion are not con- 
clusive to the person's own reason, his 
reason cannot be strengthened, but is 
likely to be wei^ened, by his adopting 
it : and if the inducements to an aot 
are not such as are consentaneous to 
his own feedings and character (where 
afibction, or the rights of others, are 
not concerned) it is so much done to- 
wards rendering his feelings and cha- 
laoter inert and torpid, instead of active 
jtnd energetic. 

He who lets the world, or his own 
portiof of itf choose lus plan of life for 



him, has no need of an^ other factdil 
than the ape-like one of imitation. Hi 
who chooses his j^lan for himself, e» 
ploys all his faculties. He must use ob- 
servation to see, reasoning and judg^ 
ment to foresee, activity to ^ther m^ 
ttrials for decision, discrimination ti 
decide, and when he has decided, fim- 
ness and self-control to hold to his di> 
liberate decision. And these quiUitiM 
he requires and exercises exactly it 
proportion as the part of his condnd 
which he determines according to hb 
own jud^ent and feelings is a lam 
one. It IS possible that he mieht le 
guided in some good path, and kept 
out of harm's way, without any of thasi 
things. But what will be his compa 
rative worth as a human being? It 
really is of importance, not only what 
men do, but also what manner of ma 
they are that do it. Among the worb 
of man, which human life is right^ 
employed in perfecting and beauti^ 
ing, the first in importance surely a 
man himself. Supposing it were pofr 
sible to get houses built, com grow% 
battles fought, causes tried, and evw 
churches erected and prayers said, lif 
machinery — by i»btomatons in humai 
form — it would be a considerable iM 
to exchange for these automatons em 
the men and women who at presal 
inhabit the more civilized parts of thi 
world, and who assuredly are bfll 
starved specimens of what nature oil 
and will produce. Human nature il 
not a machine to be built after a mode^ if 
and set to do exactly the work m- ^ 
scribed for it, but a tree, which requiifli- 
to grow and develop itself on all sidsL 
according to the tendency of the in win ^ 
forces which make it a living thing. 

It will probably be conce£d that H 
is desirable people should exercise tbeir 
understandings, and that an intellignil 
following of custom, or even occaoflB- 
ally an intelligent deviation from o* 
torn, is better than a blind and sini^ 
mechanical adhesion to it. To a oe^ 
tain extent it b admitted, that o* 
understanding should be our own : bflt 
there is not the same willingnesitl 
admit that our desires and impulMl 
should be our own likewise ; or tnatH 
possess impulses of our own, and of 



THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEINO. 



flnagtL, ii aa^thing but a peril and a 
mmn. Yet deares and impulses are as 
mnoh » part of a perfect human being, 
m befien and restraints: and strong 
inpaltes are only perilous when not 
fnjpwAj balanced; when one set of 
atiiiui and inclinations is developed into 
■trengtb, while others, which ought to 
Ofr«}mit with them, remain weak and 
iMMBtiye. It is not because men's de- 
rivM are strong that thej act ill ; it is 
beoauae their consciences are weak. 
Thfure is no natural connexion between 
strong impulses and a weak conscience. 
The natmral connexion is the other 
way. To saj that one person's desires 
ma feelings are stronger and more 
mious thim those of another, is merelj 
to saj that he has more of the raw 
Bslerial of human nature, and is there- 
kn capable, perhaps of more evil, but 
esrtaimj of more good. Strong im- 
' pkM are but another name for energy. 
; faergy ma j be turned to bad uses ; but 
^ man good may always be made of an 
ftMsigetic nature, than of an indolent 
k lad impassive one. Those who have 
^iMst natural feeling, are always those 
'vliose cultivated feelings may be made 
■^^ itronpest. The same strong sus- 
■MpdHUties which make the personal 
rJBipQlfles vivid and powerful, are also 
'the source from whence are ^nerated 
flie most passionate love of virtue, and 
tiia sternest self-control. It is through 
^ cultivation of these, that society 
W>th does its duty and protects its in- 
^otMts: not by rejecting the stuff of 
^bioh heroes are made, because it 
KHows not how to make them. A per- 
son whoee desires and impulses are his 
(^>^vii — are the expression of his own 
^ture, as it has been developed and 
BHidified by his own culture — is said to 
wre a character. One whose desires 
ind impulses are not his own, has no 
^baiacter, no more than a steam-engine 
{Uis a character. If^ in addition to be- 
il^r his own, his impulses are strong, 
^w are under the government of a 
ktvong wi^ he has an energetic cha- 
(^Mer. Wnoever thinks that individu- 
^Hfcy of desires and impulses should not 
"^ encouraged to unfold itself, must 
^iaintain that society has no need of 
^feiuiic natnroa — 1» not the better for 



containing many persons who have 
much character — and that a high 
general average of energy is not 
desirable. 

In some early states of society, these 
forces mi^ht be, and were, too much 
ahead of the power which society then 
possessed of disciplining and controlling 
them. There has been a time when 
the element of spontaneity and indi 
viduality was in excess, and the social 

Principle had a hard struggle with it 
lie difficulty then was, to induce men 
of strong bodies or minds to pay obe- 
dience to any rules which required 
them to control their impulses. To 
overcome this difficulty, law and dis- 
cipline, like the Popes struggling 
against the Emperors, asserted a power 
over the whole man, claiming to con- 
trol all hb life in order to control his 
character — which society had not found 
any other sufficient means of binding. 
But society has now fairly got the better 
of individuality ; and the danger whidi 
threatens human nature is not the ex- 
cess, but the deficiency, of personal 
impulses and preferences. Thmgs are 
vastly changed, since the passions &[ 
those who were strong by station or 
bv personal endowment were in a state 
of habitual rebellion against laws and 
ordinances, and required to be rigor- 
ously chained up to enable the persons 
within their reach to ei\]o^ any par- 
ticle of security. In our times, nom 
the highest class of society down to the 
lowest, eveiy one lives as under the 
eve of a hostile and dreaded censorship. 
Not only in what concerns others, but 
in what concerns only themselves, the 
individual or the family do not asir 
themselyes — what do I prefer? or, 
what would suit my character and dis- 
position ? or, what would allow the best 
and highest in me to have fair jaUy^ 
and enable it to grow and thrive? They 
ask themselves, what is suitable to my 
position ? what is usually done by per- 
sons of my station and pecuniary cir- 
cumstances? or (worse still) what is 
usually done by persons of a station 
and circumstances superior to min<»^ 
I do not mean that tney choose wum 
is customary, in preference to what 
suits their own inchnatiaa. Lt d$ve.^ 



36 



OP INDIVIDUALITY, AS ONE OP 



not ocmir to them to have anj inclina- 
tion, except for what i« cnstomarj. 
Thus the mind itself is bowed to the 
yoke: even in what people do for 
pleasure, conformity is the first thing 
thought of; they like in crowds ; they 
exercise choice only among things 
(ommonly done : peculiarity of taste, 
eccentricity of conduct, are shunned 
equally, with crimes : until by dint of 
not following their own nature, they 
have no nature to follow : their human 
capacities are withered and starved : 
thev become incapable of any strong 
wishes or native pleasures, and are 
generally without either opinions or 
feelings of home growth, or pro^ri^ 
their own. Now is this, or is it 
not, the desirable condition of human 
nature ? 

It is so, on the Galvinistic theory. 
According to that, the one great 
offence of man is self-will. All the 
good of which humanity is capable, is 
comprised in obedience. You nave no 
choice; thus you must do, and no 
otherwise : ' whatever is not a duty, is 
a sin.* Human nature bein^ radically 
corrupt, there is no redemption for any 
one until human nature is Killed within 
him. To one holding this theoiy of 
life, crushing out any of the human 
faculties, capacities, and susceptibili- 
ties, is no evil : man needs no capacity, 
but that of surrendering himself to 
the will of God : and if he uses any of 
his faculties for any other purpose but 
to do that supposed will more effectu- 
ally, he is better without them. This 
is the theory of Calvinism ; and it is 
held, in a mitigated form, by manv 
who do not consider themselves Gal- 
vinists; the mitigation consisting in 
giving a less ascetic interpretation to 
the alleged will of God; asserting it 
to be his will that mankind should 
gratify some of their inclinations ; of 
course not in the manner they them- 
selves prefer, but in the way of obedi- 
ence, that is, in a wav prescribed to 
them by authority ; and, therefore, by 
the necessary condition of the case, the 
same for all. 

In some such insidious form, there is 

At present a strong tendency to this 

omrow theory of life, and to ibm 



pinched and hidebound type of ban 

character which it patronizes. Mai 

persons, no doubt, smcerely think th 

human beings thus crsanped i) 

dwarfed, are as their Maker desig» 

them to be ; just as many have thoot 

that trees are a much finer thing w£ 

clipped into pollards, or cut outii 

figures of animals, than as nata 

made them. But if it be any pait 

religion to believe that man was msi 

hy a good Being, it b more consists 

with that faith to believe, that tl 

Being gave all human faculties tb 

they might be cultivated and unfolds 

not rooted out and consumed, ii 

that he tokes delight in every nean 

approach made by his creatures to tt 

ideal conception embodied in tM 

every increase in any of their capaU 

ties of comprehension, of action, or ^ 

enjoyment. There is a different tff 

of human excellence from the Calii 

istic : a conception of humanity l) 

having ite nature bestowed on it% 

other purposes than merely to be ai 

negated. * Pagan self-assertion' i«fl* 

of the elements of human worth, 

well as * Christian self-denial.** Tli 

is a Greek ideal of self-developuM 

which the Platonic and Christian ' ' 

of self-government blends with, 

does not supersede. It may be w 

to be a John Knox than an Alcibii 

but it is better to be a Pericles 

either ; nor would a Pericles, if we 

one in these days, be without anj ' 

good which belonged to John Kn 

It b not by wearing down into< 
formity all that is individual in tlr 
selves, but by cultivatiu^ it, and< 
ing it forth, within the hmite imp 
by the rights and interests of ot 
that human beings become a nobk i 
beautiM object of contemplation; i ^ 
as the works parteke the charaolffj 
those who do them, by the same 
cess human life also becomes 
diversified, and animating, fi 
more abundant aliment to high th( 
and elevating feelings, and stren 
ing the tie which binds every 
dual to the race, by making the , 
infinitely better worth belongiqg< 
In proportion to the developme "^ 
* Sterling*! JSiMV*. 



THE BtiEMENTS OF WELL-BBINO. 



87 



b in^Tidiiality, each person becomes 
tote valuable to himself, and is there- 
te capable of being more yalnable to 
liera. There is a greater fulness of 
b about his own existence, and when 
«re » nx>re fife in the units there is 
ore in the mass which is composed 
'ihem. As much compression as is 
ioemary to prevent the stronger 
lecimens of human nature from en- 
iMMshing on the rights of others, 
omot be dispensed with; but for 
da there is ample compensation eyen 
I the point of view of human develop- 
mst. The means of development 
hich the individual loses bj being 
revented from gratifying his inclina- 
tma to the injury of others, are chiefly 
blained at the expense of the de- 
sb^ent of other people. And even 
D hunself there is a full equivalent in 
ke better development oi the social 
itrt of his nature, rendered possible 
7 the restraint put upon the selfish 
Ntrt. To be held to rigid rules of 
Bstioe for the sake of others, developes 
Iw fbeHngs and capacities which have 
be good of others for their object. 
^ to be restrained in things not 
Sboting their good, bj their mere 
ispleasure, devetopes nothing valuable, 
Koept such force of character as may 
pfold itself in resisting the restraint. 
' acquiesced in, it dulls and blunts 
te wnole nature. To give any fair 
9,y to the nature of each, it is essen- 
lu that different persons should be 
lowed to lead different lives. In 
xiportion as this latitude has been 
teicised in any age, has that * age 
^^fn noteworthy to posterity. Even 
iapotism does not produce its worst 
wU, so lonff as individualitv exists 
Ider it; and whatever crushes in- 
^iduaUtyis despotism, by whatever 
Une it may be called, and whether 
professes to be enforcing the will of 
M or the injunctions of men. 
Having said that Individuality is the 
vne tJimg with development, and 
ttt it is onl^ the cultivation of in- 
^uality which produces, or can pro- 
kse, well-developed human beings, I 
igfat here close the argument: for 
huA more or better can be said of any 
of human affiujw, than that 



it brings human beings themselves 
nearer to the best thing they can be ? 
or what worse can be said of any ob- 
struction to good, than that it prevents 
this? Doubtless, however, these con- 
siderations will not suffice to convince 
those who most need convincing ; and 
it is necessary further to show, that 
these developed human beings are of 
some use to the undeveloped — to point 
out to those who do not aesire liMrtpr, 
and would not avail themselves of it, 
that they may be in some inteUigible 
manner rewarded for allowing other 
people to make use oi it without 
hindrance. 

In the first place, then, I would 
suggest that they might possibly learn 
something from them. It will not be 
denied bv anybody, that originality is 
a valuable element in human affairs. 
There is always need of persons not 
only to discover new truths, and point 
out when what were once truths are 
true no longer, but also to commence 
new practices, and set the example of 
more enlightened conduct, and oetter 
taste and sense in human life. This 
cannot well be gainsaid by anvbody 
who does not believe that the world has 
already attained perfection in all iti 
ways and practices. It is true that 
this benefit is not capable of being 
rendered by everybody alike: there 
are but few persons, in comparisoi 
with the whole of mankind, whose ex- 
periments, if adopted by others, would 
be Hkely to be any improvement on 
estabUshed practice. But these few 
are the salt of the earth ; without them, 
human life would become a stagnant 
pool. Not only is it they who intro- 
duce good things which did not before 
exist ; it is they who keep the life in 
those which already exist. If there were 
nothing new to be done, would human 
intellect cease to be necessary ? Would 
it be a reason why those who do the 
old things should forget why they are 
done, and do them like cattle, not like 
human beings? There is only too 
great a tendency in the best beliefs and 
practices to degenerate into the me- 
chanical ; and unless there were a suc- 
cession of persons whose ever-recurring 
originality prevents the grouLdei ol 



OF USDIVIDUALITY, AS ONB OP 



thofle beliefh and practices from becom- 
ing merely traoitiona]^ sach dead 
matter would not resiit the imallest 
shock from anything really aliTC, and 
there would be no reason why civilisa- 
tion should not die oat, as in the 
Byzantine Empire. Persons of genius, 
it is true, are, and are always likely to 
be, a small minority ; but in order to 
have them, it is necessary to preserve 
the soil in which they grow. Genius 
can only breathe freely in an cUmo- 
tpkere of freedom. Persons of genius 
are, ex pi termini^ more individual 
than any other people — less capable, 
consequently, of fitting themselves, 
without humul compression, into anv 
i the small number of moulds which 
society provides in order to save its 
memliers the trouble of forming their 
own character. K from timiditv they 
sonsent to be forced into one of these 
moulds, and to let all that part of them- 
selves which cannot expand under the 
pressure remain unexpanded, society 
will be little the better for their genius. 
If they are of a strong character, and 
break their fetters^ they become a mark 
for the societv which has not succeeded 
m reducing tnem to commonplace, to 
point out with solemn warning as 
'wild.* 'erratic,* and the like; much 
as if one should complain of the 
Niagara river for not flowing smoothly 
between its banks like a Dutch canal. 
I insist thus emphatically on the im- 
portance of genius, and the necessity 
of allowing it to unfold itself freely 
both in thought and in practice, being 
well aware that no one will deny the 
position in theory, but knowing also 
that almost eveiy one, in reahty,^ is 
totally indifferent to it. People tmnk 
genius a fine thing if it enables a man 
to write an exciting poem, or paint a 
picture. But in its true sense, that of 
originality in thought and action, 
though no one says that it is not a 
thing to be admired, nearly all, at 
heart, think that they can do very well 
without it. Unhappily thb is too 
natural to be wondered at. Originality 
is the one thing which unoriginal 
minds cannot feel the use of. They 
cannot see what it is to do for them : 
how should the? ? If they oould see 



what it would do tor ihmn, HwoMiMi i 
be originality. The first ■enrice wltf^ 
originality has to render thfiUL ii iM 
of opening their eyes: whion bdi|! 
once frilly done, they woidd haitl 
chance of being themielvet origU 
Meanwhile, recollecting that noMl 
was ever vet dene which some one !■ 
not the first to do, and that i^ fori, 
^hings which exist are the findti i\ 
originality, let them be modest oboh| 
to believe that there is something iB I 
left for it to accomplish, and aaai 
themselves that they are mora in md 
of originality, the less th^ 
scions of the want. 

In sober truth, whatewr 
may be professed, or even paid, to nil 
or supposed mental superionfy, At 
general tendency of things througlMi 
tne world is to render me^oorilur Mk. 
ascendant power among m«»HiH, h|iti 
ancient history, in the Middle Ages^ mH 
in a diminishing degree through ttl 
long transition from feudality totkil'^ 
present time, the individual was ijir^ 
power in himself; and if he had MKm 
great talents or a high social poiiti^lw 
he was a considerable power. At J/i^w 
sent individuals are lost in the (jmiiliii 
In politics it is almost a triviaUljf ll ||tl 
say that public opinion now mlettti m 
world. The only power deserving tki ic 
name is that of masses, and of jgoTH' ilU 
ments while they make themaelvei At m 
organ of the tendencies and instiiBbfif 
of masses. This is as true in the ■■! \ ir 
and social relations of private life mkiki 
public transactions. Those whose i^ «» 
nions go by the name of publio opirii% ,b 
are not always the same sortof pdib ri 
in America they are the whole nUH ki 
population ; in England, chiefly ttl th 
middle class. But they are alws^lt th 
mass, that is to say, collective ni^ ti 
ocrity. And what is a still greii' k 
novelty, the mass do not now taketUi ot 
opinions from dignitaries in Churoktf d 
State, from ostensible leaders, or flii « 
books. Their thinking is done k i| 
them by men much like themselvea 1^ fa 
dressing them or speaking in flAi k 
name, on the spur of the moMi^l P 
through the newspapers. I am nets* 
plaining of all tuis. I do not a^l ■ 
that anything better is oompatiU^il k 



THE ELEMENTS OF WBLL-SBDnl. 



Bneral role, with the preient low 
) of the human mind. But that 
not hinder the govenmient of 
iocritj from being mediocre goyem- 
t. No goTemment bj a demo- 

7 or a numerouB aristocracy, either 

8 political acts or in the opinions, 
ities, and tone of mind which it 
ITS, oyer did or could rise above 
iocrity, except in so far as the so- 
ign Many haye let themselyes he 
ed (which in their best times thej 
kjs haye done) by the coimsels and 
ence of a more highlj gifted and 
-ucted One or Few. The initia- 
of all wise or noble things, comes 
must come from indiyiduals; gene- 
' at first from some one indiyiduaL 

honour and glorj of tne ayerage 
. is that he is capable of following 

initiative; that he can respona 
rnallj to wise and noble things, 
be led to them with his eyes open, 
m not countenancing the sort of 
■o-worship' which applauds the 
Dg man of genius for Torcibly seis- 
on the goyemment of the world 
making it do his bidding in spite of 
f. Allhe can claim is, freeaom to 
t out the way. The power of com- 
ing others into it, is not only incon- 
mt with the freedom and deyelop- 
t of all the rest, but corrupting to 

strong man himself. It does 
1, however, that when the opinions 
aasses of merely average men are 
ywhere become or becoming the 
mant power, the counterpoise and 
Bctive to that tendency would be, 
more and more pronounced indi- 
lality of those wno stand on the 
ler eminences of thought. It is in 
e circumstances mcwt especially, 

'ixceptional individuals, instead 
iing deterred, should be encouraged 
cting differently from the mass. In 
)r times there was no advantage in 
r doing so, unless they acted not 
* differently, but better. In this 
, the mere example of non-con- 
lity, the mere refusal to bend the 
B to custom, is itself a service, 
nsely because the tyranny of opinion 
nch as to make eccentricity a re- 
tch, it is desirable, in order to 
ik through that tyranny, that 



people should he eocentiio. Eccen- 
tricity has always abounded when 
and where strengnui of character has 
abounded ; and Uie amount of eccen- 
tricity in a society has genenUy been 
pn^N])rtional to the amount of genius, 
mental vigour, and moral courage 
it contained. That so few now dare 
to he eccentric, marks the chief danger 
oftiie time. 

^ I have said that it is important to 
give the freest scojpe possible to un- 
customary things, m order that it may 
in time appear which of these are fit 
to be converted into customs. But 
independence of action, and disregard 
of custom, are not solely deserving of 
encouragement for the chance they 
afford that better modes of action, and 
customs more worthy of general adop 
tion, may be struck out ; nor is it only 
persons of decided mental superiori^ 
who have a just claim to cury on 
their lives in tiieir own way. There 
is no reason that all human existence 
should bo constructed on some one or 
some small number of patterns. If a 
person possesses any tolerable amount 
of common sense and experience, his 
own mode of laving out his existence 
is the best, not because it is the best 
in itself, but because it is his own 
mode. Human beings are not like 
dieepj and even sheep are not nndifr 
tinguishaUy alike. A man cannot ^t 
a coat or a pair of boots to fit him, 
unless they are either made to his 
measure, or he has a whole ware- 
houseful to choose from: and is it 
easier to fit him with a life than with 
a ooat, or are human beings more 
like one another in their whole phy- 
sical and spiritual conformation uiaii 
in the shape of their feet ? If it were 
only that people have diversities of 
\ taste, that is reason enough for not at- 
tempting to shape them all after one 
modeL But different persons also re- 
quire different conditions for tiieir 
spiritual development; and can at 
more exist healthily in the same moral, 
than all the variety of plants can in 
the same physical, atmosphere and 
climate. The same things which are 
helps to one person towaras the culti- 
vatKMi of his higher nature, art his 



t<^ 



OF INDIVlDl/ALlTr. AS ONE OF 



draiices to another. The same mode 
of life is a healthy excitement to one, 
keeping all his faculties of action and 
enjovment in their best order, while to 
another it is a distracting bnrthen, 
which suspends or crushes all internal 
life. Such are the differences among 
human beings in their sources of plea- 
sure, their susceptibilities of pain, and 
the operation on them of diiSeient phy- 
sical and moral agencies, that unless 
there is a corresponding diversity in 
their modes of life, they neither obtain 
their fair share of happiness, nor grow 
up to the mental, moral, and sestnetic 
stature of which their nature is capable. 
Why then should tolerance, as far as 
the public sentiment is concerned, ex- 
tend only to tastes and modes of life 
which extort acquiescence by the mul- 
titude of their adherents? Nowhere 
fexcept in some monastic institutions) 
w diversity of taste entirely unrecog- 
nised ; a person may, without blame, 
either like or dislike rowing, or smok- 
?ng, or music, or athletic exercises, or 
rhesB, or cards, or study, because both 
^hose who like each of these things, 
and those who dislike them, are too 
numerous to be put down. But the 
man, and still more the woman, who 
can be accused either of doing ' what 
nobody does,' or of not doing 'what 
evervbody does,* is the subject of as 
much depreciatory remark as if he or 
she had committed some grave moral 
delinquency. Persons require to pos- 
sess a title, or some other badge of 
rank, or of the consideration of people 
of rank, to be able to indulge somewhat 
in the luxury of doing as they like 
without detriment to their estimation. 
To indulge somewhat, I repeat: for 
whoever allow themselves much of 
that indulgence, incur the risk of 
something worse than disparaging 
speeches— -they are in peril of a com- 
mission de lunattcOf and of having 
their property taken from them and 
given to tneir relations.* 

There is soroetbing both contemptible 
and frightful in the sort of evidence on 
which, of late years, any person can be 
judicially declared unfit for the management 
of his affairs ; and after his death, his dis- 
posal of liis property can be set aside, if there 
If enough of it to p»j the expensM of Utiga- 



I 

I 



There is one charRcterfttic of ib 
present direction of public o^inia^ 
peculiarly calculated to make it mtoli- 
rant of any marked demonstration rf 
individuality. The general average of 
mankind are not only moderate in ifr 
tellect, but also moderate in inclii» 
tions : they have no tastes or wiriM 
strong enough to incline them todi 1 
anything unusual, and they ogdh- | 
quently do not understand those wfai I 
nave, and class all such with the wild 
and intemperate whom they are aocin- 
tomed to look down upon. Now, is 
addition to this foct, which is genenl, 
we have only to suppose that a stroQg 
movement has set m towards the in* i 
provemeny)f morals, and it is evidsat | 
what we nave to expect. In thesB 
days such a movement has set in; 
much has actually been effected in the 
wav of increased regularity of oondooi 
and discouragement of exceases ; and 
there is a philanthropic spirit abroad,* 
for the exercise of which there is no 
more inviting field than the moral and 
prudential improvement of onrieDoW' 
creatures. Ijiese tendencies of the 
times cause the public to be more dii 

tion — which are charged on the proftKij 
itself. All the minute details of bis daUj 



life are pried into, and whatever is 
which, seen through the medium of the inr 
ceiving and describing Acuities of th« loweil 
of the low, bears an appearance unlilce ab*^ 
lute commonplace, is laid before the Jury m 
evidence of insanity, and often with suooHii 
the Jurors being little, if at all, leas vnlgtf 
and ignorant than the witnesses ; wbDs tin 
Judges, with that extraordinary want «f 
knowledge of human nature and Ufla wUch 
continually astonishes us in English lawyer^ 
often help to miblead them. These tnsii 
speak volumes as to the state of feeling tad 
opinion among the vulgar with regard ts 
human liberty. So far from setting anj 
value on individuality — so far from respae^ 
ing the right of each individual to act, is 
things indifferent, as seems gord to his em 
Judgment and inclinations. Judges and jwin 
cannot even conceive that a person in a lUU 
of sanity can desire such freedom. 1» 
former <uiys, when it was proposed to ban) 
atheists, charitable people used to soaail 
putting them in a madhouse instead: M i 
would be nothing surprising now-a^^^;* | 
were we to see this done, and the doers sp- 
plauding themselves, because, instead of per 
secuting for religion, they had adopted n 
humane and Christian a mode of treatial 
these unfortunates, not without a silent • 
tisfaction at their having thereby obt^ni' 
their 



THE ELEMENTS OF WELL-BEING. 



41 



pO0ed thaB at most former periocU to 
prescribe general rales of condact, and 
mdeavonr to make eveiy one conform 
to the approved standard. And that 
standard, express or tacit, is to desire 
nothing stronglj. Its ideal of cha- 
racter is to he without any marked 
character; to maim by compression, 
Uke a Chinese lady's foot, eveiy part 
of bnman nature which stands out pro- 
minentlj, and tends to make the per- 
son markedly dissimilar in outline to 
commonplace humanity. 

As is usually the case with ideals 
which exclude one-half of what is de- 
sirable, the present standard of appro- 
bation produces only an inferior imita- 
tion of the other half. Instead of great 
energies guided by vigorous reason, 
■nd strong feelings strongly controlled 
by a conscientious will, its result is 
weak feelings and weak energies, 
which therefore can be kept in outward 
conformity to rule without any strength 
either of will or of reason. Already 
enei^tic characters on an^ large scale 
■re becoming merely traditional. There 
is now scarcely any outlet for energy 
in this country except business. The 
energy expended in this may still be 
regaraed as considerable. What little 
is left from that employment, is ex- 
pended on some hobby ; which may be 
a useful, even a philanthropic hobby, 
but is always some one thing, and 
generally a thine of small dimensions. 
The greatness of England is now all 
collective : individually small, we only 
appear capable of anything great b^ 
our habit of combining ; and with this 
our moral and religious philanthropists 
are perfectly contented. But it was 
men of another stamp than this that 
made England what it has been ; and 
men of another stamp will be needed 
to prevent its decline. 

Ike despotism of custom is .ve.7- 
irhere the standing hindrance to human 
advancement, being in unceasing an- 
tagonism to that disposition to aim at 
something better than customary, which 
is called, accoiding to circumstances, 
the spirit of liberty, or that of progress 
or improvement. The spirit of improve- 
ment is not always a spirit of lioerty, 
(mt it vaa/v aim at forcing improvements 



on an unwilling people ; and the spirit 
of liberty, in so far as it resists such 
attempts, may ally itself locally and 
temporarily with the opponents of im« 
provement ; but the onnr unfailing and 
permanent source of improvement is 
liberty, since by it there are as many 
possible independent centres of im- 
provement as there are individuals. 
The progressive principle, however, in 
either shape, whether as the love of 
liberty or of improvement, is antagon- 
istic to the sway of Custom, involving 
at least emancipation from that yoke ; 
and the contest between the two con- 
stitutes the chief interest of the history 
of mankind. The greater part of the 
world has, properly speaking, no his- 
tory, because the despotism of Custom 
is complete. This is the case over the 
whole East. Custom is there, in all 
things, the final appeal; justice and 
right mean conformity to custom ; the 
argument of custom no one, unless some 
tyrant intoxicated with power, thinks 
of resisting. And we see the result. 
Those nations must once have had on- 
ginaliU^ ; they did not start out of the 
ground ponuluus, lettered, and versed 
in many oi the arts of life ; they made 
themselves all this, and were tlnBU the 
greatest and most powerful nations of 
the world. What are they now ? The 
subjects or dependents of tribes whose 
forefathers wandered in the forests 
when theirs had magnificent palaces 
and gorgeous temples, but over whom 
custom exercised only a divided rule 
with liberty and progress. A people, 
it appears, may oe progressive for a 
certain len^h of time, and then stop : 
when does it stop ? Wlien it ceases to 
possess individuality. If a similar 
change should befall the nations of 
Europe, it will not be in exactly the 
same shape : the despotism of custom 
with which these nations are threat- 
ened is not precisely stationariness. It 
proscribes smgulanty, but it does not 
preclude change, provided all change 
together. We have discarded the fixed 
costumes of our forefathers ; every one 
must still dress like other people, but 
the fashion may change once or twice 
a year. We thus take care that when 
there is a change, it shall be for 



OP INDIVroUAliITT, AS ONB OF 



41 

change's sake, and not from any idea 
of beauty or conyenience ; for the same 
idea of beauty or oonyenience would 
not strike all the world at the same 
moment, and be simultaneously tiirown 
aside by all at another moment. But 
we are progressiye as well as change- 
able : we Gontinually make new inyen- 
tions in mechanical things, and keep 
them until they are again superseded 
oy better; we aro eager for improye- 
ment in politics, in education, eyen in 
morals, though in this last our idea of 
improyement chiefly consists in persua- 
ding or forcing other people to be as 
good as ourselyes. It is not progress 
that we object to ; on the contrary, we 
flatter ourselyes that we are the most 
progressiye people who eyer liyed. It 
IS indiyidoality that we war against : 
we should think we had done wonders 
if we had made ourselyes all alike ; for- 
getting that the unlikeness of one per^ 
son to another is generally the nrst 
thing which draws the attention of 
either to the imperfection of his own 
type, and the superiority of another, or 
tne possibility, oy combining the ad- 
vantages of both, of producing some- 
thing better than either. We haye a 
warning example in China — a nation 
of much talent, and, in some respects, 
eyen wisdom, owing to the rare gooa 
fortune of having been provided at an 
early period with a particularly good 
set of customs, the work, in some mea- 
sure, of men to whom even the most 
enlightened European must accord, un- 
der certain limitations, the title of sages 
and philosophers. They are remark- 
able, too, in the excellence of their ap- 
paratus for impressing, as far as pos- 
sible, the best wisdom they possess 
upon eveiy mind in the community, 
and securing that those who have ap- 
propriated most of it shall occupy the 
posts of honour and power. Surely the 
people who did this have discovered 
the secret of human progressiveness, 
and must have kept themselves steadily 
at the head of the movement of the 
world. On the contrary, the^ have 
become stationary — have remained so 
for thousands of years ; and if they are 
ever to be farther improved, it must be 
fyfonignera. They have succeeded 



beyond all hope in whatEiig1uhpll> \ 
lanthropists are so industriously wm 
ing at — in making a people aU a]ik% 
alTgoveming their thoughts and 0Q»> 
duct by the same maxims and miss*, 
and tliese are the fruits. The modsn 
rigime of public opinion is, in an vi* 
organized form, what the Chinese eda- 
cational and political sjrstems are in sa 
oiganised; and mdess indiyidualil| 
shall be able successfully to assert it- 
self a^;ainst this yoke, Ehirqpe, notwidh 
standmg its noble antecedents and iti 
professed Christianity, will tend to be- 
come another China. 

What is it that has hitlierto me* 
served Europe from this lot? wW 
has made tne European fitmily of na 
tions an improving, instead of » sta 
tionary portion ol mankind ? Not ain 
superior excellence in them, whidi, 
when it exists, exists as the e£BMst, not 
as the cause; but their remmikablt 
diversity of character and culture. In- 
dividuals, classes, nations, havv beea 
extremely uidike one another: they 
have struck out a great variety !i 
paths, each leading to something yido- 
able; and although at every period 
those who travelled in different paths 
have been intolerant of one another, 
and each would have thought it an eX" 
cellent thine if all the rest could have 
been compelled to travel his road, their 
attempts to thwart each other's deve- 
lopment have rarely hadany permanent 
success, and each has in tune endured 
to receive the good which the othen 
have offered. Europe is, in my judg- 
ment, wholly indebted to this piurafi^ 
of paths for its progressive and maav* 
sided development. But it alreafl(f 
begins to possess this benefit in a ooii> 
siderably less degree. It^ is decided^ 
advancing towards the Chinese ideal a 
making all people alike. M. de Too- 
queville, in his last important woik, 
remarks how much more the French* 
men of the present day resemble one 
another, than did those even of the last 
generation. The same remark might be 
made of Englishmen in a far greater de- 
gi'ee. In a passage already quoted from 
Wilhelm von Humboldt, he points out 
two things as necessary conditions ol 
human development, because necesaaiy 






IF 

i; 



I 



HUB BLKMEirrS of WELL-BEING. 



to leader people imlike one another; 
Bamely, freedom, end Tariety of litaa- 
tSone. The seoond of these two condi- 
tiont ia in this oonntiy ereiy day 
diminiahing. The dromnstances which 
lurromid mffeient olanee and indivi- 
dual and shape their characters, 
are daily becoming more assimilated. 
Formeilj, different ranks, different 
neigfabonrhoods, diffnent trades and 
professions, lived in what might be 
called different worlds; at present to 
a ffreat degree in the same. Cknnpa- 
ratovely speaking, they now read the 
same uiings, listen to uie same things, 
see the same things, go to the same 
daoes, have their hoj^s and fears 
diieeted to the same objects, have the 
same rights and liberties, and the same 
means cS asserting them. Great as 
axe the differences of position which 
remain, thev are nothing to those which 
have oeaseo. And the assimilation is 
still proceeding. AU the jpolitical 
changes of the age promote it, since 
they aSi tend to raise the low and to 
lower the high. Evenr extension of 
education promotes it Decanse educa- 
tion brings people under common influ- 
enoes, and gives them access to the 
seneial stock of facts and sentiments. 
Improvement in the means of commn> 
nication promotes it, by brining the 
inhabitants of distant j^laces into per^ 
ional contact, and keeping up a rapid 
flow of changes of residence between 
one place and another. The increase 
of commerce and manufactures pro- 
motes it, by diffusing more widely the 
advantages of easy circumstances, and 
opening all objects of ambition, even 
the highest, to general competition, 
whereby the desire of rising oecomes 
no longer the character of a particular 
class, out of all classes. A more 
powerful agency than even all these, 
m bringing about a general similarity 



amouff mankind, is the oomplete es- 
tablishment, in this and otner free 
countries, of Uie ascendancy of public 
opinion in the State. As tne various 
social eminences which enabled per 
sons entrenched on them to disre^rd 
the opinion of the multitude, gradually 
beoome levelled; as the very idea A 
resisting the will of the pablic. when 
it is positively known that they nave a 
will, disappears more and more from 
the minos of practical politicians; 
there ceases to be any social support 
for nonconformity — any substantive 
power in society, which, itself opposed 
to the ascendancy of numbers, is in- 
terested in taking under its protection 
opinions and tendencies at variance 
with those of the public. 

The combination of all these causes 
forms so ereat a mass of influences 
hostile to ]^dividuality, that it is not 
easy to see how it can stand its ground. 
It will do so with increasing difficulty, 
unless the intelligent part of the pubho 
can be made to feel its value — to see 
that it is good there should be diffe^ 
ences, even though not for the better, 
even though, as it may appear to them, 
some shomd be for the worse. If the 
claims of Individuality are ever to be 
asserted, the time is now, while much 
is still wanting to complete the en- 
forced assimilation. It is only in the 
earlier stages that any stand can be 
successfully made against the encroach- 
ment. Tne demand that all other 
people shall resemble ourselves, grows 
by what it feeds on. K resistance 
waits till life is reduced nearly to one 
uniform type, all deviations from that 
type will come to be considered im- 
pious, immoral, even mokstrous and 
contrary to nature. Mankind speedily 
become unable to conceive diversity, 
when they have been for some time 
unaccustomed to see it. 



44 



LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF 



CHAPTEB IV. 



OF TBM LIMITS TO THfi AUTHOBITT OF 800IETT OYSB THB INDIYIDUAIi. 



What, then, is the ri^htfiil limit to 
the sovereienty of the individual over 
himself? Where does the authority of 
society begin? How much of human 
life should be assigned to individuality, 
and how much to society ? 

Each will receive its proper share, if 
each has that which more particularly 
concerns it. To individuality should 
belong the part of life in wmch it is 
chiefly the individual that ib interested ; 
to society, the part which chiefly in- 
terests society. 

Though society is not iounded on 
a contract, and though no good pur- 
poae is answered by inventing a con- 
tract in order to deduce social obliga- 
tions from it, every one who receives 
the protection of society owes a return 
for tne benefit, and the fact of livine in 
society renders it indispensable tiiat 
each should be bound to observe a cer- 
tain line of conduct towards the rest. 
This conduct consists, first, in not in- 
juring the interests of one another ; or 
rather certain interests, which, either 
by express legal provision or by tacit 
understanding, ought to be considered 
as rights ; and secondly, in each per- 
son's bearing his share (to be fixed on 
some equitable principle) of the labours 
and sacrifices mcurred for defending 
the society or its members fix)m injury 
and molestation. These conditions 
society is justified in enforcing, at all 
costs to those who endeavour to with- 
hold fulfilment. Nor is this all that 
society may do. The acts of an indi- 
vidual may be hurtful to others, or 
wanting in due consideration for their 
welfare, without going to the length of 
violating any of their constituted rights. 
The offender may then be justly pun- 
ished by opinion, though not by law. 
As soon as any part of a person's con- 
duct afiiects prejudicially the interests 
of others, society has jurisdiction over 
it, and the question whether the gene- 
's/ weJIkre will or will not be promoted 



by interfering with it, becomes open tl i 
discussion. But there is no room for | 
entertaining any such question whea ' 
a person's conduct affects the interests I 
of no persons besides himself or needi I 
not affect them unless they like (all 
the persons concerned being of full age, 
and the ordinary amount of understand- 
ing). In all such cases, there should 
be perfect freedom, legal and social, to 
do the action and stand the conse- 
quences. 

It would be a great misunderstand- 
ing of this doctrine, to suppose that it 
is one of selfish indifference, which pre- 
tends that human beings have no bosi* 
ness with each other's conduct in lift^ 
and that they should not concern them> 
selves about the well-doing w weU* 
being of one another, unless their owi 
interest is involved. Instead of any 
diminution, there is need of a great in- 
crease of disinterested exertion to pro- 
mote the good of others. But disin- 
terested benevolence can find other 
instruments to persuade people to thdr 
good, than whips and scourges, either 
of the literal or the metaphorical sort 
I am the last person to undervalue ths 
self-regarding virtues ; they are oii|f 
second in importance, if even second, 
to the social. It is equallv the bad- 
ness of education to cultivate bott. 
But even education works by c<»ivio> 
tion and persuasion as well as by oom- 
pulsion, and it is by the former onh 
that, when the period of education u 
passed, the self-regarding virtues should 
oe inculcated. Human beings owe to 
each other help to distinguish tin 
better from the worse, and encourage- 
ment to choose the former and avoid 
the latter. They should be fbr ever 
stimulating each other to increased ex- 
ercise of their higher faculties, and in- 
creased direction of their feelings asA 
aims towards wise instead of foolish, 
elevating instead of degrading, objectB 
and contemplations. But neither ool 



SOCIETY OVER TfiB INDIVIDUAL. 



46 



I, nor any number of persons^ is 
Qted in saying to another human 
j*e of ripe ^ears, that he shall 
) with his life for his own benefit 
he chooses to do with it. He is 
irson most interested in his own 
eing: the interest which any 
person, except in cases of strong 
lal attachment, can have in it, 
ling, compared with that which 
mself has; the interest which 
f has in him individually (except 
lis conduct to others) is fractional, 
altogether indirect: while with 
t to his own feelings and circum> 
IS, the most ordinary man or 
Q has means of knowledge im- 
rably surpassing those that can 
isessed by any one else. The in- 
snce of society to overrule his 
ent and purposes in what only 
Is himself, must be grounded on 
d presumptions ; which ma^ be 
ther wrong, and even if ncht, 

likely as not to be misapplied 
iividual cases, by persons no 

acquainted with tne circnm- 
is of such cases than those are 
tok at them merely from without, 
i department, therefore, of human 
, IndUviduality has its proper field 
ion. In the conduct of human 
I towards one another, it is neces- 
hat general rules should for the 
>art be observed, in order that peo- 
y know what they have toexpect : 
1 each person's own concerns, 
dividual spontaneity b entitled 
e exercise. Considerations to 
is judgment, exhoi-tations to 
then his will, may be offered to 
!ven obtruded on nim, by others ; 
) himself is the final judge. All 

which he is likely to commit 
it advice and warning, are fiur 
ighed by the evil of allowing 

to constrain him to what they 
his good. 

> not mean that the feelings with 
a person is regarded by others 

not to be in any way affected 

self-regarding Qualities or defi- 
es. This is neither possible nor 
ble. If he is eminent in any of 
lalities which conduce to his own 
he is, so far, a proper object of 



admiration. He b so much the nearer 
to the ideal perfection of human na- 
ture. If he is grossly deficient in those 
qualities, a sentiment the opposite of 
admiration will follow. There is a de- 
gree of folly, and a degree of what may 
be called f though the phrase is not un- 
objectionaole) bwness or depravation 
of taste, which, though it cannot justify 
doing harm to the person who mani- 
fests it, renders him necessarily and 
properly a subject of distaste, or, in 
extreme cases, even of contempt : a 
person could not have the opposite 
qualities in due strength without en- 
tertaining these feelings. Though 
doing no wrong to any one, a person 
may so act as to compel us to judge 
him, and feel to him, as a fool, or as a 
being of an inferior order: and since 
this ittdgment and feeling are a fact 
whicn he would prefer to avoid, it is 
domg him a service to warn him of it 
beforehand, as of any other disagree- 
able consequence to which he exposes 
himsell It would be well, indeed, if 
this good office were much more firefly 
rendered than the common notions ot 
politeness at present permit, and if one 
person could nonestly point out to an- 
other that he thinks him in fault, 
without being considered unmannerly 
or presuming. We have a right, also, 
in various wa^i, to act upon our unfa- 
vourable opimon of any one, not to the 
oppression of his individuality, but in 
the exercise of ours. We are not 
bound, for example, to seek his society; 
we have a right to avoid it (though not 
to parade the avoidance), tor we have 
a nght to choose the society most ac- 
ceptable to us. We have a right, and 
it may be our duty, to caution others 
against him, if we think his example 
or conversation likely to have a per- 
nicious effect on those with whom hb 
associates. We ma^ give others a 
preference over him m optional good 
offices, except those which tend to his 
improvement. In these various modes 
a person may suffer verv severe penal- 
ties at the hands of others, for faults 
which directly concern onlv himself; 
but he suffers these penalties onlv iii 
so far as they are the natural, anci, as 
it were, the spontaneous consequeucei 



46 



LIMITS TO THK AUTHOBITY OF 



of the faults themselves, not heoause 
they are purposely inflicted on him for 
the sake of punishment. A person 
who shows rashness, ohstinacy, self- 
conceit — who cannot live witmn mo- 
derate means — who cannot restrain 
himself from hurtful indulgences — who 
pursues animal pleasures at the ex> 
pense of those of feeling and intellect 
— must expect to he lowered in the 
opinion of others, and to have a less 
share of their favourahle sentiments ; 
but of this he has no right to complain, 
unless he has merited their fitvour bj 
special excellence in his social rela- 
tions, and has thus established a title 
to their good offices, which is not 
affected by his demerits towards 
himself. 

What I contend for is, that the in- 
oonveniences which are strictly insepa- 
rable from the unfavourable judgment 
of others, are the only ones to which 
a person should ever oe subjected for 
that poi*tion of his conduct and cha- 
racter which concerns his own good, 
but which does not affect the interests 
of others in their relations with him. 
Acts injurious to others reouire a to- 
tally different treatment. Encroach- 
ment on their rights; infliction on 
them of any loss or damage not justi- 
fied by his own rights; falsehood or 
duplicity in dealing with them ; unfair 
or ungenerous use of advantages over 
them ; even selfish abstinence irom de- 
fending them against ii\jury — these 
are fit objects of moral reprobation, 
and, in grave cases, of moral retribu- 
tion and punishment. And not only 
these acts, but the dispositions whicn 
lead to them, are properly immoral, 
and fit subjects of disapprobation 
which may rise to abhorrence. Cruelty 
of disposition ; malice and ill-nature ; 
that most anti-social and odious of all 
passions, envy; dissimulation and in- 
sincerity; irascibility on insufficient 
cause, and reHontment disproportioned 
to the provocation ; the love of domi- 
neering over others ; the desire to en- 
gross more than one's share of advan- 
tages (the irXtoviKia of the Greeks) ; 
the pride which derives gratification 
from the abasement of others; the 
tg^otiam which thinkn self and ita con- 



t 



oems more important than «*«•] ^ 
else, and deoides all doubtful qneitiflw 
in its own favour; — these are monl 
vices, and constitute a bad a&d odioa 
moral character: unlike the self-ie- 
garding faults previously mentioned 
which are not properly immoralities 
and to whateyer pitch they may M 
carried, do not constitute wickedneai. 
They may be prooft of any amount d 
folly, or want of personal dignity and 
8el^relrpect ; but they are only a sub- 
ject of^ moral reprobation when thej 
myolye a breach of duty to others, rar 
whose sake the individual is bound to 
have care for himsel£ What are caUed 
duties to ourselves are not sodally ob> 
ligatory, unless circumstances render 
them at the same time duties to others. [ 
The term duty to oneself when it I 
means anything more than prudence, ' 
means self-respect or self-development; 
and for none of these is any one ao* 
countable to his fellow-creatozes, be- 
cause for none of them is it for the 
good of mankind that he he heJd ac- 
countable to them. 

The distmction between the loesof 
consideration which a person may 
rightly incur by defect of prudence or 
of personal dignity, and tne reproba- 
tion which is due to him for an offence 
against the rights of others, is not a 
merely nominal distinction. It makes 
a vast difference both in our feelings 
and in our conduct towards him, whe- 
ther he displeases us in things in which 
we think we have a right to control 
him, or in things in which we know 
that we have not. If he displeases ui^ 
we may express our distaste, and we 
may stand aloof from a person as weB 
as m)m a thing that diupleases us ; bat 
we shall not therefore feel called on te 
make his life uncomfortable. We 
shall reflect that he already bears, or 
vrill bear, tiie whole penalty of his 
error; if he spoils his life by misma* 
nagement, we shall not, for that reason, 
desire to spoil it still further : instead 
of wishing to pimisb him, we shall 
rather endeavour to alleviate his pu- 
nishment, by showing him how he maj 
avoid or cure the evils his conduct 
tends to bring upon him. He may be 
to us an olject of pity, perhaps of die 



800IETY OVER THE INDIVTOUAL. 



47 



Ske, bat not of aiM^r or resentmeiit ; 
we shaU not treat nim like an enemy 
of lociet J : the worst we shall think 
; ourselves justified in doing is leaving 
i bim to himself, if we do not interfere 
I benerolently by showing interest or 
: oonoem for him. It is far otherwise 
if he has infringed the rules necessary 
ibr the protection of his fellow-crea- 
toreB, inoiyidaally or oollectiyely. The 
evil consequences of his acts do not 
then fall on himsell, but aa others; and 
society, as the protector of all its mem- 
bers, most retaliate on him ; must in- 
flict pain on him for the express purpose 
of Bunishment, and must take care that 
it oe sufficiently severe. In the one 
case, he is an offender at our bar,^ and 
we are sailed on not only to sit in 
judgment on him, but, in one shape or 
another, to execute our own sentence : 
in the other "Ase, it is not our part to 
inflict any suffering on him, except 
what may incidentiuly follow from our 
using the same liberty in the regula- 
tion of our own affairs, which we allow 
to him in his. 

The distinction here pointed out be- 
tween the part of a person^s life which 
fsoncems only himself, and that which 
concerns others, many persons will re- 
fuse to admit. How (it may be asked) 
€an any part of the conduct of a mem- 
1>er of society be a matter of indifference 
to the other members ? No person is 
mn entirely isolated being ; it is impos- 
■ible for a person to do anything seh- 
oudy or permanently hurtful to himself^ 
without mischief reaching at least to 
hie near connexions, and of^n far be- 
yond them. If he injures his property, 
he does harm to those who directly or 
iiidirecily derived support from it, and 
usually diminishes, bv a greater or le^ 
amount, the general resources of the 
omnmunity. If he deteriorates his 
bo^y or mental &culties, he not tmly 
brings evil upon all who depended on 
bim for any portion of their happiness, 
;' bat disqualines himself for rendering 
the services which he owes to his fellow 
\ creatures generally ; perhaps becomes 
A a burthen on their affection or benevo- 
fl leaoe ; and if such conduct were veij 
A h«qnent, hardly any offence that is 
li <K)iiuaiUed woukl detract more from the 



general sum of good. Finally, if b^ his 
vices or follies a person does no direct 
harm to others, ne is nevertheless (it 
may be said) injunous by his example : 
ana ought to be compelled to oontrol 
himself, for the sake of those whom the 
sight or knowledge of his conduct might 
oorrupt or mislead. 

And even (it will be added) if the 
consequences of misconduct oould be 
confined to the vicious or thoughtless 
individual, oueht society to abandon to 
their own guicUmee those who are mani- 
festly unfit for it ? If protection against 
themselves is confessedly due to chil- 
dren and persons under age, is not so- 
ciety equally bound to afford it to per- 
sons of mature years who are equally 
incapable of sel^govemment? Kgam* 
bling, or drunkenness, or incontinence, 
or idleness, or uncleanliness, are as in- 

I'urious to happiness, and as great a 
lindranoe to improvement, as many or 
most of the acts prohibited by law, 
why (it maj be asked) should not law, 
so far as IS consistent with practica- 
bility and social convenience, endeavour 
to repress these also ? And as a sup- 
plement to the unavoidable imperfec- 
tions of law, ought not opinion at least 
to organize a powerful police against 
these vices, and visit rigioly with social 
penalties those who are known to prac- 
tise them ? There is no question nere 
(it ma^ be said) about restricting indi- 
viduaht^i or impeding the trial of new 
and ori^nal experiments in living. Tlie 
only things it is sought to prevent an 
things which have been tried and con. 
demned from the beginning of the world 
until now; things which experience has 
showd not to be useful or suitable to 
any person's individuality. There must 
be some length of time and amount of 
experience, after which a moral or pru- 
dential truth may be regarded as esta- 
blished: and it is merely desired to 
prevent generation after generation 
from fallmg over the same precipice 
which has been fetal to their prede- 
cessors. 

I fuUy admit that the mischief which 
a person does to himself may seriously 
affect, both through their sympathies 
and their interests, those nearly con- 
nected with him^ and ia ^ ws)$s^^^ 



LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OF 



KHsiety at large. When, by oonduot of 
tluB Bort| a person is led to violate a 
distinct and assignable obligation to 
any other person or ^rsons, the case 
is taken out of the selt-regarding class, 
and becomes amenable to moral disap- 
probation in the proper sense of the 
term. If, for example, a man, through 
intemperanoe or extrayagance, becomes 
unable to pay his debts, or, having un- 
dertaken the moral responsibility of a 
fauiily, becomes from tne same cause 
incapable of supporting or educating 
them, he is deservedly reprobated, and 
might be justly punished ; but it is for 
the breach of duty to his family or 
creditors, not for the extravagance. If 
the resources which ouglit to have been 
devoted to them, had been diverted 
from them for the most prudent invest- 
ment, the moral culpabiuty would have 
been the same. George Barnwell mur- 
dered his uncle to get money for his 
mistress, but if he had done it to set 
himself up in business, he would equally 
have been hanged. Again, in the fre- 
quent oaM of a man who causes grief 
to his family by addiction to bad habits, 
he deserves reproach for his unkindness 
m ingratitude ; but so he may for culti- 
vating habits not in themselves viciouSi 
if they are painfrd to those with whom 
he passes his life, or who from personal 
ties are dependent on him ror their 
comfort. WhoKver fails in the con- 
sideration generally due to the inte- 
rests and feelings of others, not being 
compelled by some more imperative 
duty, or justified by allowable self- 
preference, is a subject of moral disap- 
probation for that failure, but not for 
the cause of it, nor for the errors, 
merely personal to himself, which may 
have remotely led to it. In like man- 
ner, when a person disables himself, by 
conduct purely self-regarding, fix)m the 
performance of some defimte duty in- 
cumbent on him to the public, he is 
guilty of a social offence. No person 
ought to be punished simply for being 
drunk; but a soldier or a policeman 
should be punished for being drunk on 
duty. Whenever, in short, there is a 
definite damage, or a definite risk of 
damage, either to an individual or to 
iho public, the case is t*ken oat of the 



province of liberty, and pUked in UmI 
of morality or law. 

But with regard to the merely 9i» 
tingent, or, as it may be calle<l, cob- 
structive ii\jury which a person cau«i 
to society, by conduct which neithsr 
violates any specific duty to the puhBe, 
nor o( casions perceptible hurt to aar 
assignable individual except himseu; 
the inconvenience is one which sodstj 
can a£ford to bear, for the Bake of na 
gpreater good of human freedooL li 
grown persons are to be panished for 
not takmg proper care of tuemselvei^ I 
would rather it were for their ownsdn^ 
than under pretence of preventing thea 
from impairing their capacitY of na- 
dering to society benefits which lociaty 
does not pretend it has a right to ezaol 
But I cannot consent to argue the pool 
as if society had no means of hniiga% 
its weaker members up to ita ordinaij 
standard of rational conduc^ exoepi 
waiting till they do somethinsc infr 
tional, and then punishing theiii,le^Ib 
or morally, for it. Society baa hm 
absolute power over them during all thi 
early portion of their existence : it )m 
had the whole period of childhood ad 
nonage in which to try whether it oodi 
make them capable of rational condud 
in life. The existing generation N 
master both of the training and thi 
entire drcumstances of the generatidi 
to come ; it cannot indeed make thsB 
perfectly wise and good, because it ii 
itself so lamentably deficient in noi 
ness and wisdom ; and its beat cSnrti 
are not always, in individual caaM^ ili 
most sucq^fm ones ; but it is perfiacl^ 
well able to make the rising gensA 
tion, as a whole, as good as, and aKtfli 
better than, itself. If society Iota aif 
considerable number of ita membM 
grow up mere children, incapafakrf 
being acted on by rational rrninidiii 
tion of distant motives, society hail^ 
self to blame for the conaequanoii 
Armed not only with all the powenif 
education, but with the aaoendaaif 
which the authority of a received 0f 
nion always exercises over the ndiil 
who are least fitted to judge for theR 
selves ; and aided by the natural jtmd 
ties which cannot be prevented ftM| 
(ailing on those who incur the dictHi 



K 



SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL 



•r the oontenpt of those who know 
tlwm ; let not society j^tetend that it 
MedB, besides all this, the power to 
issue commands and enforce obedience 
a the personal concerns of individuals, 
h which, on all principles of justice 
aid policy, the decision ou^ht to rest 
with those who are to abide the con-, 
nqaences. Nor is there anything 
which tends more to discredit and 
frustrate the better means of influencing 
eonduct, than a resort to the worse, n 
tiiere be among those whom it is at- 
tempted to coerce into prudence or 
temperance, any of the material of 
irhich vigorous and independent cha- 
racters are made, they will infallibly 
pebel against the yoke. No such per- 
lon will ever feel that others have a 
tight to control him in his concerns, 
mch as they have to jprevent him from 
li^iiring them in theirs ; and it easily 
Bomes to be considered a mark of spirit 
Knd courage to fly in the face of such 
Bsurped authority, and do with osten- 
tation the exact opposite of what it 
iujoins ; as in the fasnion of grossness 
vrhich succeeded, in the time of Charles 
n., to the fanatical moral intolerance 
nf the Puritans. With respect to what 
ii said of the necessity of protecting 
society from the bad example set to 
others by the vicious or the self-indul- 

Ent i it is true that bad example may 
,ye a pernicious efiect, especially the 
example of doing wrong to others with 
Impunity to the wrong-doer. But we 
«re now speaking of conduct which, 
while it does no wrong to others, is 
•opposed to do groat harm to the agent 
himself: and i do not see how those 
who believe this, can think otherwise 
tiian that the example, on the whole, 
must be more salutary than hurtful, 
lince, if it displays the misconduct, it 
displays also the painful or degrading 
consequences whicu, if the conduct is 
-instly censured, must be supposed to 
■e in all or most cases attendant 
«it. 

But the strongest of all the argu- 
jiaients against the interference of the 
'"nblio with purely personal conduct, is 
t when it does mterfere, the odds 
that it interferes wrongly, and in 
vrrong place. On questions of 



social morality, of duty to others, the 
opinion of the public, that is, oi 
an overruling minority, though often 
wrong, is likely to be still oftenei 
right ; because on such questions they 
are only required to judge of their own 
interests ; of the manner in which 
some mode of conduct, if allowed t€ 
be practised, would affect themselvesi 
But the opinion of a similar majority, 
imposed as a law on the minority, on 
questions of self-regarding conduct, is 
quite as likely to be wrong as right ; 
for in these cases public opinion means, 
at the best, some pec^le*s opinion of 
what is good or bad for other people ; 
while very often it does not even mean 
that ; the public, with the most perfect 
indifference, passing over the pLbasure 
or convenience of those whose conduct 
they censure, and considering only 
their oym preference. There are manj^ 
who consider as an injury to them* 
selves any conduct which they have a 
distaste mr, and resent it as an outrage 
to their feelings ; as a religious bigot, 
when charged with disregarding the 
religious feelings of others, has been 
known to retort that they disregard 
his feelings, by persisting in meir 
abominable worship or creed. But 
there is no parity between the feeling 
of a person for hb own opinion, and 
the feeling of another who is offended 
at his holding it; no more than be- 
tween the desire of a thief to take a 
purse, and the desire of the right owner 
to keep it. And a person's taste is as 
much nis own peculiar concern as his 
opinion or his purse. It is easy for 
any one to imagine an ideal public, 
which leaves the freedom and choice of 
individuals in all uncertain matters 
undisturbed, and only requires them 
to abstain fnmi modes of conduct which 
universal experience has condemned. 
But ^here has there been seen a public 
which set any such limit to its censor- 
ship ? or when does the public trouble 
itself about universal experience? In 
its interferences with personal conduct 
it is seldom thinking of anything bul 
the enormity of acting or feeling 
differently from itself; and this stan- 
dard of judgment, thinly disguised, is 
held up to mankind as the dlct&tA ^ 



50 



LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITT OP 



reliffion and pliilosopliy, by nine-tenths 
of i3l moralists and speculative writers. 
These teach that things are right be- 
cause they are right ; oecanse we feel 
them t6 be so. They tell us to search 
in our own minds and hearts for laws 
of conduct binding on ourselves and on 
all others. What can the poor public 
do but apply these instructions, and 
make their own personal feelings of 
good and evil, if thev are tolerabJv 
unanimous in them, obligatory on all 
the world ? 

The evil here pointed out is not one 
which exists only in theory; and it 
may perhaps be expected that I should 
specify the instances in which the 
public of this age and country improperly 
invests its own preferences with the 
character of moral laws. I am not 
writing an essay on the aberrations of 
existing moral feeling. That is too 
weighty a subject to be discussed 
parenthetically, and by way of illus- 
tration. Yet exami)les are necessary, 
to show that the principle I maintain 
is of serious and practical moment, and 
that I am not endeavouring to erect a 
barrier against imaginary evils. And 
it is not difficult to show, by abundant 
instances, that to extend the bounds of 
what may be called moral police, until 
it encroaches on the most unquestion- 
ably legitimate liberty of the indivi- 
dual, is one of the most universal of all 
human propensities. 

As a first instance, consider the 
antipathies which men cherish on no 
better grounds than that persons whose 
religious opinions are different from 
theirs, do not practise their religions 
observances, especially their religious 
abstinences. To cite a rather trivial 
example, nothing in the creed or prac- 
tice of Christians does more to envenom 
the hatred of Mahomedans against 
them, than the fact of their eating 

gwk. There are few acts which 
hristians and Europeans regard with 
more unaffected disgust, than Mussul- 
mans regard this particular mode of 
satisfying hunger. It is, in the first 
place, an offence against their religion ; 
out this circumstance by no means ex- 
plaina either the degree or the kind of 
Uieir repugDance ; &r wine also is foT- 



bidden by their religion, and to pM> 
take of it is by all Massulmans to* 
counted wrong, but not disgusting; 
Their aversion to the flesh of tu 
* unclean beast* is, on the contrary, <tf 
that peculiar character, resembline ii 
instinctive antipathy, which the idea 
of uncleanness, when once it thorougfalj 
sinks into the feelings, seems alwajrt to 
excite even in those whose personil 
habits are anything but scrupulomlj 
cleanly, and oi which the sentiment a 
religious impurity, so intense in the 
Hindoos, is a remarkable example. 
Suppose now that in a people, of whoo 
the majority were Mussulmans, that 
majority should insist upon not pet- 
mitting pork to be eaten within iha 
limits of the country. This would be 
nothing new in Mahomedan countries.* 
Would it be a legitimate exercise d 
the moral authority of F|^blic opinion? 
and if not, why not ? The practice ii 
really revolting to such a publio. They 
also sincerely think that it is forbiddei 
and abhorred b^ the Deity. Neither 
could the prohibition be censured n 
religious persecution. It might be r»> 
ligious in its origin, but it would nit 
be persecution tor religion, since » 
body's religion makes it a duty to eil 
pork. The only tenable ground d 
condemnation would be, that with tti 
personal tastes and self-regarding co» 
ccms of individuals the pubHc hastf 
business to interfere. 

To come somewhat nearer ham: 
the majority of Spaniards consider ita 
eross impiety, offensive in the higheit 
degree to the Supreme Being, to w» 

* The case of the Bombay Paneei kl 
curious instance in point. When thisind* 
trious and enterprising tribe, the 
dants of the Persian fire-worshippa«» M|! 
from their native country before the Cal^^\ 
arrived in Western IndiA, they were i^j 
mitted to toleration by the Hindoo ■oyw'ilg|| 
on condition of not eating beef. When tMi| 
regions afterwards fell under the dondrfvj 
of Mahomedan conquerors, the Pstm 
tained from them a continuance of 
gence, on condition of refraining trook 
What was at first obedience to authority 
came a second nature, and the Pan 
this day abstain both flrom beef and 
Though not required by their religioii,^ 
double abstinence has had time to grow ' 
a custom of their tribe ; and custom, ia 
Eaat, la a religion. 



f 

I 
li 



ra 



SOCIETY OVER THE INDIVIDUAL. 



61 



iim in any other manner than 
Oman Catholic; and no other 
worship is lawfbl on Spanish 
The people of all Southern 
B look upon a married clergy 
only irreli^ous, hut unchaste, 
nt, gross, disgusting. What do 
tants think of these perfectly 
) feelings, and of the attempt to 
3 them against non-Catholics? 
' mankind are justified in inter- 
with each other's Uherty in 
which do not concern the inter- 
' others, on what principle is it 
le consistendy to exclude these 
* or who can hlame people for 
ig to suppress what they regard 
^ndal m the sight of God and 
No stronger case can be shown 
^hibiting anything which is re- 
1 as a personal immorality, than 
le out for suppressing these prac- 
a the eyes of those who regard 
us impieties ; and unless we are 
r to adopt the logic of persecn* 
nd to say that we may persecute 
because we are right, and that 
must not persecute us because 
ire wrong, we must beware of 
:ing a principle of which we 
. resent as a gross injustice the 
ition to ourselves, 
preceding instances may be ob- 
to, although unreasonably, as 
from contingencies impossible 
; us: opinion, in this country, 
ing likely to enforce abstinence 
neats, or to interfere with people 
rshipping, and for either marry- 
not marrying, according to tlieir 
or inclination. The next exam- 
)weyer, shall be taken from an 
rence with liberty which we have 
means passed all danger of. 
)yer the I^iritans haye been suffi- 
r powerfiil, as in New England, 
Great Britain at the time of the 
onwealth, they haye endeayoured, 
onsiderable success, to put down 
iblic, and nearly all private, 
ments : especially music, dancing, 
games, or other assemblages for 
es of diversion, and the theatre, 
are still in this country large 
of persons by whose notions of 
ty and religion these recreations 



are condemned ; and those penons be 
longing chiefly to the middle class, who 
are the ascendant power in the present 
social and political condition of the 
kingdom, it is by no means impossible 
•that persons of these sentiments may 
at some time or other command a ma- 
jority in Parliament. How will the 
remaining portion of the conmiunitv 
like to have the amusements that shall 
be permitted to them regulated by the 
religious and moral sentiments of the 
stricter Calvinists^ and Methodists? 
Would they not, with considerable pe- 
remptoriness, desire these intrusivelv 
pious members of society to mind theur 
own business ? This is precisely what 
should be said to every government and 
every public, who have the pretension 
that no person shall ei\joy any pleasure 
which they think wrong. Bnt if the 
principle of the pretension be admitte4 
no one can reasonably object to its b6 
ing acted on in the sense of the majo- 
rity, or other preponderating power in 
the country ; and all persons must be 
ready to conform to the idea of a Chvit 
tian commonwealth, as understood b^ 
the early settlers in New England, if a 
religious profession similar to tnein 
should ever vucceed in regaining its 
lost ground, as religions supposed to b« 
declining have so often been known 
to do. 

To imagine another contingency, 
perhaps more likely to be realized than 
the one last mentioned. There is con- 
fessedly a strong tendency in the 
modem world towards a aemocratio 
constitution of society, accompanied or 
not by popular pohtical institutions. 
It is amnned that in the country 
where this tendency is most completely 
realized — where both society and the 

S>vemment are most democratic — the 
nited States — ^the feeling of the ma- 
jority, to whom any appearance of a 
more showy or costly style of living 
than they can hope to rival is disagree- 
able, operates as a tolerably effectual 
sumptuary law, and that in many 
parts of the Union it is really difficult 
for a person possessing a very large in- 
come, to find anj mode of spending it; 
which will not mour popular disappro* 
bation. Thoagjh laaL f^\«ai«&iuk ^h^ 



51 



LIMITS TO THE AUTHORITY OP 



these are dcmbtless much exaggerated 
as a representation of existing facts, 
the state of things they describe is not 
onl 7 a conceivable and possible, but a 
probable result of democratic feeling, 
combined with the notion that the 
public has a ri^ht to a yeto on the 
«nanner in which individuals shall 
spend their incomes. We have only 
Further to suppose a considerable diffu- 
sion of Socialist opinions, and it may 
become infamous in the eyes of the 
tuajority to possess more property than 
some very small amount, or any income 
not earned by manual labour. Opinions 
similar in principle to these, already 
prevail widely among the artizan 
class, and weigh oppressively on those 
who are amenable to the opinion chiefly 
3f that class, namely, its own mem- 
bers. It is known tnat the bad work- 
men who form the majority of the 
operatives in many branches of in- 
dustry, are decideoly of opinion that 
bad workmen ought to receive the 
same wages as good, and that no one 
ought to be allowed, through piece- 
work or otherwise, to earn by superior 
skill or industry more than others can 
without it. And they employ a moral 
police, which occasionally becoires a 
physical one, to deter skilful workmen 
from receiving, and employers from 
giving, a larger remuneration for a 
more useful service. If the public 
bave any jurisdiction over private con- 
•ems, I cannot see that these people 
ire in fault, or that any individual's 
particular public can be blamed for 
asserting the same authority over his 
individual conduct, which the general 
public asserts over people in general. 

But, without dwelling upon supposi- 
titious cases, there are, m our own 
day, gross usurpations upon the liberty 
of private life actually practised, and 
still greater ones threatened with some 
expectation of success, and opinions 
propounded which assert an unlimited 
right in the public not only to pro- 
hibit by law everything which it thinks 
wrong, but in order to ^t at what it 
thinks wrong, to prohibit a number of 
things which it admits to be innocent. 
Under the name of preventing in- 
iemperuiceg the people m one EngUeih 



colony, and of neariy half the IJniteJ 
States, have been interdicted by law 
from making any use whatever of ftr 
mented drinks, except for medical par^ 
poses : for prohibition of their sale if 
in fact, as it is intended to be, proiuli- 
tion of their use. And though ilie im- 
practicability of executing the law has 
caused ite repeal in several of the 
States which had adc^ited it, inclndng 
the one from which it derives ite nanM^ 
an attempt has notwithstanding heei 
commenced, and is prosecuted wnb cm 
siderable zeal by many of the profeam 
philanthropiste, to agitete for a aimilai 
law in this country. Tlie asaociatioB, 
or ' Alliance' as it terms itself, which i^ 
has been formed for this porpoee, hsi I 
acquired some notoriety through thi t 
publicity given to a correspondenee I 
between ite Secretory and one of tin I.; 
very few English public men who hoU 
that a politician 8 opinions on^t to be 
founded on principles. Lord otaolej^ 
share in this correspondence is cakii' 
lated to strenethen the hopes alrea4^ 
built on him, by those who know how 
rare such qualities as are maoifeited 
in some of his public appearances, ofr 
happily are among those who figme is 
poutical life. The organ of the Affi- 
ance, who would * deeply deplon tk 
recognition of any pnnoipie wliieli 
could be wrested to justify bigotry sad 
persecution,' undertakes to point ost 
the 'broad and impassable hsRMi' 
which divides such principles frois 
those of the association. ' All matton 
relating to thought, opinion, consoieDO^ 
appear to me,' he sa^s, ' to oe withflst 
the sphere of legislation ; all pertainiig 
to social act, habit, relation, solgeet 
only to a discretionary power yestMJ 
in the Stote itself, and not in the uA 
vidual, to be within it.' No mention ii 
made of a third class, different fim 
either of these, viz. acts and halili 
which are not social, but individsili 
although it is to this class, srurely, M 
the act of drinking fermented l^noi _ 
belongs. SeUin^ fermented Hqiioi% I J 
however, is trading, and trading '^ * 
social act. But the infringement i 
plained of is not on the hberty of 
seller, but on that of the buyer 
Qonsvuuer ; since the Stote might i^ 



i 
la 

IE 



re 



I 



SOCtETr OVER THB INDIVIDUAL. 



S8 



M well forbid him to drink wine, as 
pirposely make it impossible for him 
to obtain it. The Se^etary, however, 
says, * I claim, as a citizen, a right to 
legislate whenever my social rights are 
invaded by the social act of another.' 
And now for the definition of these 
'social rights.' * If anything invades 
my social jrights, certamly the traffic 
in strong dnnk does. It destroys my 
primary right of security, by con- 
stantly creating and stimulating social 
disorder. It invades my right of 
equality, by deriving a profit from the 
creation of a misery I am taxed to sup- 
port. It impedes my right to free 
moral and intellectual development, by 
surrounding my path with dangers, 
and by weakening and demoralizing 
society, from whicn I have a right to 
claim mutual aid and intercourse.' A 
theory of ' social r^h ts, ' the like of which 
probably never before found its way 
into distinct language : being nothing 
short of this — that it is the absolute 
social right of every individual, that 
every other individual shall act in 
every respect exactly as he ought ; that 
whosoever fails thereof in the smallest 
particular, violates my social right, 
and entitles me to demand from the 
legislature the removal of the ^ev- 
ance. So monstrous a principle is far 
more dangerous than any single inter- 
ference with liberty ; there is no violation 
of liberty which it would not justify; 
it acknowledges no right to any freedom 
whatever, except perhaps to that of 
holding opinions m secret, without 
ever disclosing them : for, the moment 
an opinion which I consider noxious 
passes any one's lips, it invades all the 
'social rights' attnbuted to me by the 
Alliance. The doctrine ascribes to all 
mankind a vested interest in each 
other's moral, intellectual, and even 
physical perfection, to be defined by each 
claimant according to his own standard. 
Another important example of ille- 
intimate interference with the right- 
ral liberty of the individual, not simply 
threatened, but long since carried into 
triumphant effect, is Sabbatarian legis- 
lation. Without doubt, abstinence on 
one day in the week, so far as the exi- 
fenciea of lifo permit; from the Hsual 



daily occupation, thoagh in no respect 
raligionslv binding on any except Jews, 
is a highly beneficial custom. And 
inasmuch as this custom cannot be ob- 
served without a general consent to 
that effect amon^ the industrious 
classes, therefore, m so far as some 
persons by working may impose the 
same necessity on others, it may be 
allowable and right that the law should 
guarantee to each the observance by 
others of the custom, by suspending 
the ^ater operations of industry on a 
particular day. But this justification, 
grounded on the direct interest which 
others have in each individual's ob- 
servance of the practice, does not applv 
to the self-chosen occupations in wmch 
a person may think fit to employ his 
leisure ; nor does it hold good, m the 
smallest degree, for legal restrictions 
on amusemente. It is true that the 
amusement of some is the day's work 
of others ; but the pleasure, not to say 
the useful recreation, of many, is worth 
the labour of a few, provided the occu- 
pation is freely chosen, and can be 
freely resigned. The operatives are 
perfectly right in thinking that if all 
worked on Sunday, seven days' work 
would have to be given for six days' 
wages : but so long as the great mass 
of employments are suspended, the 
small number who for the enjoyment 
of others must still work, obtain a pro- 
portional increase of earnings; and 
they are not obliged to follow those 
occupations, if they prefer leisure to 
emolument. If a further remedy is 
sought, it might be found in the 
esteblishment by custom of a holiday 
on some other day of the week for 
those particular classes of persons. 
The only ground, therefore, on which 
restrictions on Sunday amusements can 
be defended, must be that they are ro- 
ligiously wrong; a motive of legisla-* 
tion which can never be too earnestly 
protested against. 'Deorum injuriie 
Diis cursB.' It remains to be proved 
that society or any of its officers holds 
a commission from on high to avenge 
any supposed offence to Omnipotence, 
wmch is not also a wrong to our 
fellow creatures. The notion that it 
it QUA maxi's d»Lts \>\aa^ vglsASc«»c <\«9d^^ 



A4 



LnOTS TO THE AUTHORITY OF SOCIETY. 



be religiouB, was the foundation of all 
the reugions penecutionB eyer perpe- 
trated, and if admitted, would fully 
justify them.. Though the feeling 
which breaks out in the repeated at- 
temnts to stop railway travelling on 
Sunday, in the resistance to the open- 
ing of Museums, and the like, has 
sot the cruelty of the old persecutors, 
the state of mind indicated by it is 
ftmdamentally the same. It is a deter- 
mination not to tolerate others in doing 
what is permitted by their religion, 
because it is not permitted by the per- 
secutor's religion. It is a belief that 
Qod not only abominates the act of the 
misbelieyer, but will not hold us guilt- 
less if we leave him unmolested. 

I cannot refrain from adding to these 
examples of the little account commonly 
made of human liberty, the language 
of downright persecution which breaks 
out from the press of this country, 
whenever it feels called on to notice 
the remarkable phenomenon of Mormon- 
ism. Much might be said on the un- 
expected and instructive fact, that an 
alleged new revelation, and a religion 
founded on it, the product of palpable 
imposture, not even supported by the 
orestige of extraordinary qualities in 
its founder, is believed by hundreds 
of thousands, and has been made the 
foundation of a society, in the age of 
newspapers, railways, and the electric 
telegraph. What nere concerns us is, 
that this religion, like other and better 
religions, has its mart3rrs ; that its 
prophet and founder was, for his teach- 
mg, put to death by a mob; that others 
of its adherents lost their lives by the 
same lawless violence ; that they were 
forcibly expelled, in a body, from the 
coimtry in which they first grew up ; 
while, now that they have been chased 
into a solitary recess in the midst of a 

• desert, many in this country openly de- 
clare tk&t it would be right (only that 
it is not convenient) to send an expedi- 
tion against them, and compel them 
by force to conform to the opinions of 
other people. The article of the 
Mormonite doctrine which is the chief 
provocative to the antipathy which thus 
hreaka through the orainary restraints 

ofmligiotia toierance, it its sanction of 



polygamy; which, thoud^ permftftil 
to Mahomedans, and Hindoos, ni 
Chinese, seems to excite unqoenohabli 
animosity when practised by penoM 
who speak English, and profess to be t 
kind of Christians. No one has t 
deeper disapprobation than I have d 
this Mormon institution ; both for odier 
reasons, and because, far from bein^ in 
any way countenanced by the prineqpb 
of liberty, it is a direct infractioii of 
that principle, being a mere riveting 
of the chains of one half of the oom* 
munity, and an emancipation of the 
other from reciprocity of obHgatloo 
towards them. StilL it must be le- 
membered that this relation is as mndi 
voluntary on the part of the womsn 
concerned in it, and who may be deemed 
the sufferers by it, as is the case with 
any other form of the marriage instito- 
tion ; and however surprising this &ct 
may appear, it has its expuination in 
the common ideas and customs of the 
world, which teaching women to think 
marriage the one thing needful, mab 
it intelligible that many a woman 
should prefer being one of several wivei, 
to not being a wife at alL Othtf 
countries are not asked to reoGAun 
such unions, or release any portiOBof 
their inhabitants from their own hm 
on the score of Mormonite opinions. But 
when the dissentients have oonoedsd 
to the hostile sentiments of others, ftr 
more than could justly be demanosd; 
when they have left the countries to 
which their doctrines were unacoept* 
able, and established themselves in aiS' 
mote comer of the earth, which thej 
have been the first to render habitaU^ti 
human beings ; it is difficult to see ot 
what principles but those of tjnumy 
they can be prevented fh)m living 
there under what laws they please^ 
provided they commit no aggression ot 
other nations, and allow perfect free* 
dom of departure to those who are dis- 
satisfied with their ways. A recent 
writer, in some respects of consiflerabk 
merit, proposes (to use his own words] 
not a crusade, but a dvilizade^ against 
this polygamous community, to put st 
end to what seems to him a retrogiadt 
step in civilization. It also appears so 
I to me. Va^. I am not awa?e that anj 



1 

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1 

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APPLI0ATI0N8. 



J0 



Qiiii^ liM a right to force another 
ciyilized. So lon^ as the sofiferers 
3 had law ck> not invoke assistance 
other communities, I cannot ad- 
bat persons entirel;^ unconnected 
ihem ought to step m and reauire 
k condition of things with which 
10 are directly interested appear 
satisfied, should he put an end to 
se it is a scandal to persons some 
inds of miles distant, who have 
.rt or concern in it. Let them 
missionaries, if they please, to 
1 against it; and let them, hy 
bir means (of which silencing the 
)rs is not one,) oppose the pro- 
of similar doctrines among their 
eople. If ciyilization has got the 



better of barbarism^ when barbarism 
had the world to itself it is too much 
to profess to be afraid lest barbarism, 
after haying been fairly ^t under, 
should revive and conquer civilization. 
A civilization that can thus succumb 
to its vanquished enemy, must first 
have become so degenerate, that neither 
its appointed priests and teachers, ner 
anybody else, nas the capacity, or will 
take the trouble, to stand up for it. If 
this be so, the sooner such a civiliza- 
tion receives notice to quit, the better. 
It can only go on from bad to worse, 
until destroyed and regenerated (like 
the Western Empire) by energetic 
barbarians. 



CHAPTER V. 



APPLICATIONS. 



trinciples asserted in these pages 
be more generally admitted as 
isis for discussion of details, he- 
consistent application of them to 
i various departments of govem- 
and morals can be attempted 
my prospect of advantage. The 
>serration8 I propose to make on 
ous of detail, are designed to 
ate the principles, rather than to 
them out to their consequences, 
r, not so much applications, as 
lens of application ; which may 
to bring into greater clearness 
leaning and limits of the two 
18 which together form the en- 
tctrine of this Essay, and to assist 
dgment in holding the balance 
m them, in the cases where it 
rs doubtful which of them is ap- 
le to the case. 

maxims are, first, that the indi- 
is not accountable to society for 
tions, in so far as these concern 
terests of no person but himself. 
3, instruction, persuasion, and 
nee by other people if thought 
ary by them for their own good, 
3 only measures by which society 



can justifiably express its dislike or 
disapprobation of his conduct. Se- 
condly, that for such actions as are 
prejudicial to the interests of others, 
the individual is accountable, and may 
be subjected either to social or to le^l 
punishment, if society is of opinion 
that the one or the other is requisite 
for its protection. 

In tile first place, it must by no 
means be supposed, because damage, 
or probability of damage, to the inte- 
rests of others, can alone justify the 
interference of society, that therefore it 
always does justify such interference. 
In many cases, an individual, in pup 
suing a legitimate object, necessarilv 
and therefore legitimately causes pain 
or loss to others, or intercepts a good 
which they had a reasonable hope of 
obtaining. Such oppositions of inte- 
rest between individuals oflen arise 
from bad social institutions, but are 
unavoidable while those institutions 
last ; and some would be unavoidable 
under any institutions. Whoever sue 
ceeds in an overcrowded profession, or 
in a competitive examination ; whoever 
is preferred to another in any contest 



ACTMCATIONa 



for an olgeot wbicli both desire, reaps 
benefit from the loss of others, from 
their wasted exertion and their disap- 
pointment. Bat it is, by common ad- 
mission, better for the general interest 
of mankind, that persons should parsne 
their objects undeterred by this sort of 
consequences In other words, society 
admits no right, either legal or moral, 
in the disappointed competitors, to im- 
munity from this kind of sufierinff; 
and feels called on to interfere, only 
when means of success have been em 
ployed which it is contrary to tho ge- 
neral interest to permit — namely, fraud 
or treachery, ana force. 

Again, trade is a social act. Who- 
eyer undertakes to sell any description 
of goods to the public, does what af- 
fects the interest of other persons, and 
of society in general ; and thus bis 
conduct, m principle, comes within the 
jurisdiction of society : accordinglyi it 
was once held to be the duty of go- 
▼emments, in all cases which were 
considered of importance, to fix prices, 
and regulate the processes of manufac- 
ture. But it is now recognised, though 
not till after a long straggle, that both 
the cheapness and the good quality of 
commodities are most effectually pro- 
vided for by leaving the producers and 
sellers perfectly free, under the sole 
check of e^ual freedom to the buyers 
for Bupplvmg themselves elsewhere. 
Phis is the so-called doctrine of Free 
Trade, which rests on grounds different 
from, though equally solid with, the 
principle of individual liberty asserted 
m this Essay. Restrictions on trade, 
or on production for purposes of 
trade, are indeed restraints; and all 
restraint, quA restraint, is an evil : but 
the restramts in question affect only 
that part of conduct which society is 
competent to restrain, and are wrong 
solely because they do hot really pro- 
duce the results which it is' desired to 
produce by them. As the principle of 
individual liberty is not involved in the 
doctrine of Free Trade, so neither is it 
in most of the questions which arise 
respecting the limits of that doctrine ; 
as for example, what amount of public 
control is admissible for the prevention 
tf&aud by adulteration ; how far sani- 



tary precautions, or anrangeine n ts li 
protect workpeople employed in dn- 
gerous occupations, should be enftniBJ 
on employers. Such qmstioiia imvhi 
considerations of liberty, only in lofii 
as leaving people to themMlTet ii al^ 
ways better, caterii parihuif than ooi- 
trolling them : but that they may h 
legitimately controlled for these mA, 
is in pnnciple undeniable. On tfai 
other band, there are questions relatiDg 
to interference with trade, which ire 
essentially questions of liberty; saoli 
as the Maine Law, already touched 
upon ; the prohibition of the importa- 
tion of opium into China ; the rnstiio- 
tion of the sale of poisons ; all ossei, 
in short, where the object of the inter 
ference is tc make it impossible or 
difficult to obtain a particular oom* 
modity. These interferences are ob 
jectiouable, not as infringements ob 
the liberty of the producer or wller, 
but on that of the buyer. 

One of these examples, that of tba 
sale of poisons, opens a new questioo: 
the proper limits of what may be caDea 
the functions of police ; how fu Hbertj 
may le^timately be inyaded for tlM 
prevention of crime, or of accident It 
IS one of the undisputed funotioBSi' 
government to take precautions agaimt 
crime before it has been cotnmittad, n 
well as to detect and punish it aftar 
wards. The preventive fiincti<w cf 
government, however, is far more liibb 
to be abused, to the prejudice of libei^i 
than the punitory (unction ; for then 
is hardly any part of the legitimate 
freedom of action of a human bsinf 
which would not admit of being r^n- 
sented, and fairly too, as increasing ^ 
facilities for some form or other <x di- 
linquency. Nevertheless, if a pnblie 
authority, oi even a private penoB, 
sees any one evidently prepanng ti 
commit a crime, they are not bonna ti 
look on inactive until the crime ii 
committed, but may interfere to pM- 
vent it. If poisons were never hcniff^ 
or used for any purpose except tin 
commission of murder, it would bi 
right toprohibit their manufacture sal 
sale. They may, however, be wantrf 
not only for innocent but for umM 
purposes, and restrictions oannot b 



APPLICATIONS. 



67 



imposed in the one case without ope- 
rating in the ether. Again, it is a 
proper office of puhlic authority to 
fpoLSLrd against accidents. If either a 
pablio officer or any one else saw a 
person attempting to cross a bridge 
which had been ascertained to be un- 
safe, and there were no time to warn 
him of his dauber, they might seize 
him and turn him back, without any 
real infringement of his liberty; for 
liberty consists in doing what one de- 
sires, and he does not desire to fall into 
tiie river. Nevertheless, when there 
is not a certainty, but only a danger 
'if mischief, no one but the person him- 
self can judge of the sufficiency of the 
motive which may prompt him to in- 
cur the risk : in this case, therefore, 
(unless he is a child, or delirious, or in 
some state of excitement or absorption 
incompatible with the full use of the 
reflecting faculty) he ought, I conceive, 
to be only warned of the danger ; not 
forcibly prevented from exposing him- 
self to it. Similar considerations, ap- 
plied to such a question as the sale of 
poisons, may enable us to decide which 
sunong the possible modes of regulation 
%re or are not contrary to principle. 
Snch a precaution, for example, as tbat 
rf labelling the drug with some word 
expressive of its dangerous character, 
jiay be enforced without violation of 
liberty : the buyer cannot wish not to 
enow that the thing he possesses has 
;>oisonous qualities. But to require in 
Ul cases the certificate of a medical 
practitioner, would make it sometimes 
impossible, always expensive, to obtain 
the article for legitimate uses. The 
>nly mode apparent to me, in which 
iifiSculties may be thrown in the way 
of crime committed through this means, 
snthout any infringement, worth taking 
into account, upon the liberty of those 
who desire the poisonous, substance for 
>ther purposes, consists in providing 
what, m tne apt language of Bentham, 
IB called * preappointed evidence.' This 
provision is familiar to every one in the 
zase of contracts. It is usual and right 
that the law, when a contract is en- 
tered into, should require as the con- 
iUtion of its enforcing performance, that 
[certain formalities should be obserred. 



such as signatures, attestation of wit- 
nesses, and the like, in order that in 
case of subsequent dispute, there may 
be evidence to prove that the contract 
was really entered into, and that there 
was nothing in the circumstances to 
render it legally invalid: the efifect 
being to throw great obstacles in the 
way of fictitious contracts, or contracts 
made in circumstances which, if known, 
would destroy their validity. Precau- 
tions of a similar nature might be en- 
forced in the sale of articles adapted to 
be instruments of crime. The seller, 
for example, might be required to enter 
in a register the exact time of the trans- 
action, the name and address of the 
buyer, the precise quality and quantity 
sold ; to ask the purpose for which it 
was wanted, and record the answer he 
received. When there was no medical 
prescription, the presence of some third 
person might be required, to bring 
home the fict to the purchaser, in case 
there should afterwards be reason to 
believe that the article had been applied 
to criminal purposes. Such regulations 
would in general be no material im- 
pediment to obtaining the article, but 
a very considerable one to making an 
improper use of it without detection. 

The right inherent in society, to 
ward off crimes against itself by ante- 
cedent precautions, suggests the obvi- 
ous limitations to the maxim, that 
purely self-regarding misconduct can- 
not properly be meddled with in the 
way of^ prevention or puuishment. 
Drunkenness, for example, in ordinary 
cases, is not a fit subject for legisla 
tive interference; but I should deem 
it perfectly legitimate that a person, 
who had once been convicted of any 
act of violence to others under the in- 
fluence of drink, should be placed 
under a special legal restriction, per- 
sonal to himself; that if he were after- 
wards found drunk, he should be liable 
to a penalty, and that if when in that 
state he committed another offence, 
the punishment to which he would be 
liable for that other offence should be 
increased in severity. The making 
himself drunk, in a person whom 
drunkenness excites to do harm tA 

^ 1 



68 



APPLICATIONS. 



again, idlenesB, except in a person re- 
ceiving support from the public, or 
except when it constitutes a breach of 
contract, cannot without tyranny be 
made a subject of legal pimishment ; 
but if, either from idleness or from any 
other avoidable cause, a man fails to 
perform his legal duties to others, as 
for instance to support his children, it 
is no tyranny to force him to fulfil that 
obligation, by compulsory labour, if no 
other means are available. 

Again, there are many act. which, 
being directly injurious only to the 
agents themselves, ought not to be 
legally interdicted, but which, if done 
publicly, are a violation of good man- 
ners, and coming thus within the cate- 
gory of ofiences against others, may 
rightly be prohibited. Of this kind 
are offences against decency; on 
which it is unnecessary to dyrell, the 
rather as they are only connected in- 
directly with our subject, the objection 
to publicity being equally strong in the 
case of many actions not in themselves 
condemnable, nor supposed to be so. 

There is another question to which 
an answer must be found, consistent 
with the principles which have been 
laid down. In cases of personal con- 
duct supposed to be blameable, but 
which respect for liberty precludes 
society from preventing or punishing, 
because the evil directly resulting falls 
wholly on the agent ; what the agent 
is free to do, ought other persons to be 
eanally free to counsel or instigate? 
This question is not free from difficulty. 
The case of a person who solicits an- 
other to do an act, is not strictly a 
case of self-regarding conduct. To 
give advice or offer inducements to 
any one, is a social act, and may, 
therefore, like actions in general which 
affect others, be supposed amenable to 
social control. But a little reflection 
corrects the first impression, by show- 
ing that if the case is not strictly 
within the definition of individual 
liberty, yet the reasons on which the 
principle of individual liberty is 
grounded, are applicable to it. If 
people must be allowed, in whatever 
concerns only themselves, to act as 
eeema best to themselves, at their own 



peril, they must equfclly be freo to tm 
suit with one another about wfattii 
fit to be so done ; to exchange opiaioBik 
and give and receive snggettMBiL 
Whatever it is permitted to do, it nmt 
be permitted to advise to do. Thi 
question is doubtfriL only when As 
instigator derives a personal benell 
from his advice ; when he makei itUi 
occupation, for subsistence or peoonitij 
gain, to promote what society and Ai 
State consider to be an eyil. TbM^ 
indeed, a new element of compHeilMi 
is introduced ; namely, the ezifltem 
of classes of persons with an intemt 
opposed to wnat is considered as tin 
public weal, and whose mode of fivbg 
IS grounded on the counteraction of it. 
Ought this to be interfered with, er 
not ? Fornication, for example, maH 
be tolerated, and so must gamUiog; 
but should a person be free to be a 

?imp, or to keep a gambling-hooitt 
'he case is one of those whi^ lis <■ 
the exact boundary line between twt 
principles, and it is not at onoe appi^ 
rent to which of the two it pT OT srir 
belongs. There are argument! on Dott 
sides. On the side of tolention it 
may be said, that the fact of feUowing 
anything as an occupation, and fifing 
or profitmg by the practice of it, ean* 
not make that criminal which wooU 
otherwise be admissible ; that the act 
should either be consistently permitted 
or consistently prohibited ; that if te 
principles which we have hitherto d^ 
fended are true, society has no barf- 
ness, as society, to decide anything ti 
be wrong which concerns only the ifr 
dividual; that it cannot go bqraai 
dissuasion, and that one person shooU 
be as free to persuade as another to 
dissuade. In opposition to this it may 
be contended, that although the pnUio^ 
or the State, are not warranted in 
authoritatively deciding, for mnpoM 
of repression or punishment, that toA 
or such conduct affecting only the in* 
terests of the individual is good or bad 
they are frilly justified in assuming^ if 
they regard it as bad, that ite being M 
or not is at least a disputable qneitxin* 
That, this being supposed, they nniiirt 
be acting wrongly m endeayouring ti 



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APPL10AT10W8. 



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which are not disinterested, of instiga- 
tors who cannot possibly be impartial 
— who have a direct personal interest 
OB one side, and that side the one 
which the State believes to be wrong, 
and who confessedly promote it for 
penonal objects only. There can 
sorely, it may be m'ged, be nothing 
lost, no sacrifice of good, by so ordering 
matters that persons shall make their 
election, either wisely or foolishly, on 
their own prompting, as free as possi- 
l)le from the arts of persons who stimu- 
late their inclinations for interested 
torposes of their own. Thus (it may 
e said) though the statutes respecting 
unlawfiil games are utterly indefensible 
— ^though all persons should be free to 
gamble in their own or each other*s 
nouses, or in any place of meeting 
established by their own subscriptions, 
and open only to the members and 
their visitors — yet public gambling- 
houses should not be permitted. It is 
true that the prohibition is never 
effectual, and that, whatever amount 
of tyrannical power may be given to 
the police, gambling-houses can always 
be maintained under other pretences ; 
but they may be compelled to conduct 
their operations with a certain degree 
of secrecy and mystery, so that nobody 
knows anything about them but those 
who seek them ; and more than this, 
society ought not to aim at. There is con- 
siderable force in these arguments. I will 
nst venture to decide whether they are 
sufficient to justify the moral anomaly 
of punishing the accessary, when the 
principal is (and must be) allowed to 
go free ; of fining or imprisoning the 
procurer, but not the fornicator — the 
gambling-house keeper, but not the 
gambler. Still less ought the common 
operations of buying and selling to be 
interfered with on analogous grounds. 
Almost every article which is bought 
and sold may be used in excess, and 
the sellers have a pecuniary interest 
in encouraging that excess; but no 
argument can bo founded on this, in 
favour, for instance, of the Maine 
Law ; because the class of dealers in 
strong drinks, though interested in 
their abuse, are indispensably required 
<or the sake of their legitimate use. 



The interest, however, of these dealers 
in promoting intemperance is a real 
evil, and justifies the State in imposing 
restrictions and rec^uiring guarantees 
which, but for that justification, would 
be infringements of legitimate liberty. 
A further question is, whether the 
State, while it permits, should never- 
theless indirectly discourage conduct 
which it deems contrary to the best in- 
terests of the agent; whether, for 
example, it should take measures to 
render the means of drunkenness more 
costly, or add to the difficulty of pro- 
curing them by limiting the number of 
the places of sale. On this as on most 
other practical questions, many dis- 
tinctions require to be made. To tai 
stimulants for the sole purpose of 
making them more difficult to be oh 
tained, is a measure differing only is 
degree from their entire prohibition ; 
and would be justifiable only if that 
were justifiable. Every increase oi 
cost is a prohibition, to those whose 
means do not come up to the augmented 
price; and to those who do, it is a 
penalty laid on them for gratifying 
a particular taste. Their choice ol 
pleasures, and their mode of expending 
their income, after satisfying their 
legal and moral obligations to the 
State and to individuals, are their own 
concern, and must rest with their own 
judgment. These considerations may 
seem at first sight to condemn the 
selection of stimulants as special 
subjects of taxation for purposes of 
revenue. But it must be remembered 
that taxation for fiscal purposes is ah* 
solutely inevitable ; that in most coun- 
tries it is necessary that a considerable 
Sart of that taxation should be in- 
irect ; that the State, therefore, can* 
not help imposing penalties, which to 
some persons may be prohibitory, on 
the use of some articles of consumption 
It is hence the duty of the State to 
consider, in the imposition of taxes, 
what commodities tne consumers can 
best spare ; and d fortiori^ to select 
in preference those of which it deems 
the use, beyond a ver^ moderate quan- 
tity, to be positiveljr injurious. Taxa- 
tion, theremre, of stimulants, up to tha 
point wVmi^Yi "^xQdiWKAa ^^ \»^Besi\ 



\•^n^v^ 



00 



APPLICATIONS. 



amomit of revenue (supposing that the 
State needs all the revenue which it 
jields) is not only admissihle, but to be 
approved of. 

The question of making the sale of 
these commodities a more or less ex- 
clusive privilege, must be answered 
iifferently, according to the purposes 
to which the restriction is intended to 
be subservient. All places of public 
resort require the restraint of a police, 
and places of this kind peculiarly, be- 
cause offences against society are espe- 
cially apt to originate there. It is, 
therefore, fit to confine the power of 
selling these commodities (at least for 
consumption on the spot) to persons of 
known or vouched-for respectability of 
conduct ; to make such regulations re- 
specting hours of opening and closing 
as may be requisite for public surveil- 
lance, and to ^dthdraw the licence if 
breaches of the peace repeatedly take 
place through the connivance or inca- 
pacity of the keeper of the house, or if 
it becomes a renaezvous for concocting 
and preparing offences against the law. 
Any further restriction I do not con- 
ceive to be, in principle, justifiable. 
The limitation in number, for instance, 
of beer and spirit houses, for the ex- 
press purpose of rendering them more 
difiScuit of access, and diminishing the 
occasions of temptation, not only ex- 
poses all to an mconvenicnce because 
there are some by whom the facility 
would be abused, but is suited only to 
a state of society in which the labour- 
ing classes are avowedly treated as 
children or savages, and placed under 
an education of restraint, to fit them 
for future admission to the privileges 
of freedom. This is not the principle 
on which the labouring classes are pro- 
fessedly governed in any free country ; 
and no person who sets due value on 
freedom will give his adhesion to their 
being so governed, unless after all 
efforts have been exhausted to educate 
them for freedom and govern them as 
freemen, and it has been definitively 
proved that they can only be governed 
as children. The bare statement of the 
alternative shows the absurdity of sup- 
poBing that Buch efforts have been 
made in any case which needs be con- 



sidered here. It is only becanw tki 
institutions of this coontty are a miii 
of inconsisteiicies, that thingB find ad- 
mittance into our practice which htUmf 
to the system of despotic, or what h 
called paternal, government, while tin 
general freedom of our inatitntioiii pr^ 
eludes the exercise of the amount of oon* 
trol necessary to render the restraint d 
any real efiBcacy as a moral education. 
It was pointed out in an early piit 
of tins Essay, that the liberty of tb« 
individual, in things wherein the indi* 
vidual is alone concerned, implies a 
corresponding liberty in any number oi 
individuals to regulate by mutual agne 
ment such things as regard them join^, 
and regard no persons but themsehoi. 
lliis question presents no difficulty, *> 
long as the will of all the persons im- 
plicated remains unaltered ; but siiioe 
that will may change, it is often neoea- 
sary, even in things in which they alont 
are concerned, that they should enter 
into engagements with one anoUiffi 
and when they do, it is fit, as a geneff) 
rule, that those engagements riiould oi 
kept. Yet, in the laws, probably, c( 
every country, this general rule has some 
exceptions. Not only persons are not 
held to engagements wnich violate tiie 
rights of tnird parties, but it is lOiiM- 
times considered a sufficient reason fir 
releasing them from an engagement! 
that it IS injurious to themselves. 4d 
this and most other civilized oountiiflit 
for example, an engagement by whid 
a person should sell himself or sBan 
himself to be sold, as a slave, would bi 
null and void ; neither enforced by la* 
nor by opinion. The ground for thin 
limiting his power of voluntarily dii- 
posing of his own lot in life, is apoa* 
rent, and is very clearly seen in van 
extreme case. The reason for not in- 
terfering, unless for the sake of othen^ 
with a person's voluntary acts, is cod* 
sideration for his liberty. HisYolm* 
tary choice is evidence tnat what he K 
chooses is desirable, or at the least ea* 
durable, to him, and his good is on ihs 
whole best provided for by allowing biB 
to take his own means of pursuing it* 
But by selling himself for a slavey he 
abdicates his liberty ; he foregoes aoi 
fuluie 'QBA o^ \t laeyond that single act 



\ 



APPLlCATIOKa 



•1 



He therefore defeats, in his own case, 
the very purpose which is the jnstifi- 
oJition of allowing him to dispose of 
himself. He is no longer firee ; hut is 
thenceforth in a position which has no 
longer the presumption in its fayour, 
Aat wculd oe aflbrded hy his volun- 
terily remaining in it. The principle 
of freedom cannot require that he should 
be free not to be free. It is not free- 
dom, to he allowed to alienate his free- 
dom. These reasons, the force of which 
is so conspicuous in this peculiar case, 
are evidently of far wider application ; 
vet a limit is eveiywhere set to them 
by the necessities of life, which con- 
tmually require, not indeed that we 
should resign our freedom, hut that we 
should consent to thb and the other 
limitation of it. The principle, how- 
ever, which demands uncontrolled free- 
dom of action in all that concerns only 
the agents themselves, requires that 
those who have become bound to one 
another, in things which concern no 
third party, should he ahle to release 
one another from the engagement: 
and even without such voluntary re- 
lease, there are perhaps no extracts or 
engagements, except those that relate 
to money or money's worth, of which 
tne can venture to say that there ought 
to be no liberty whatever of retracta- 
tion. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, 
in the excellent essay from which I 
have already quoted, states it as his 
conviction, that engagements which 
involve personal relations or services, 
ihould never be legally binding beyond 
a limited duration of time ; and that 
the most important of these engage- 
ments, marriage, having the peculiarity 
that its objects are fr^stratea unless the 
feelings of both the parties are in har- 
mony with it, should require nothing 
more than the declared will of either 
party to dissolve it. This sul^ject is too 
miportant, and too complicated, to be 
discussed in a parenthesis, and I touch 
•n it only so far as is necessary for 
purposes of illustration. K the concise- 
aess and generality of Baron Humboldt's 
dissertation had not obliged him in this 
instance to content himself with enun- 
eiating his conclusion without discuss- 
ing the premises^ he would doubtleai 



have recognised that the question can- 
not be decided on grounos so simple 
as those to which he confines himseH 
When a person, either by express pro- 
mise or oy conduct, has encouraged 
another to rely upon his continuing to 
act in a certain wa;^ — to build expecta- 
tions and calculations, and stake any 
part of his plan of life upon that sup- 
position — a new series of moral obliga- 
tions arises on his part towards that 
person, which may possibly be over- 
ruled, but cannot be ignored. And 
again, if the relation between two con- 
tracting parties has been followed by 
consequences to others ; if it has placed 
third parties in any peculiar position, 
or, as m the case of marria^, has even 
called third parties into existence, obli- 
gations arise on the part of both the 
contracting parties towards those third 
persons, the fulfilment of which, or at 
all events the mode of fulfilment^ must 
be greatly afiected by the continuance 
or disruption of the relation between 
the original parties to the contract. It 
does not follow, nor can I admit, that 
these obligations extend to requiring 
the fulfilment of the contract at all costs 
to the happiness of the reluctant party; 
but they are a necessary element in toe 
question ; and even if, as Von Humboldt 
maintains, they ought to make no dif- 
ference in the legal freedom of the 
parties to release themselves from the 
engagement (and I also hold that they 
ought not to make mtieh difference), 
they necessarily make a great difference 
in the moreU freedom. A person is 
bound to take all these circumstances 
into account, before resolving on a step 
which may affect such important inte- 
rests of others ; and if he does not allow 
proper weight to those interests, he is 
morally responsible for the wrong. 1 
have made these obvious remarks for 
the better illustration of the general 
principle of liberty, and not because 
they &re at all needed on the particular 
question, which, on the contrary, is 
usually discussed as if tho interest of 
children was everything, and that of 
grown persons nothing. 

I have already observed that, owing 
to the absence of any recognised gene- 
nX principles, liberty ia <mA ^gem^m^ 



APPLICATIONS. 



where H ihould be withheld, as well as 
withheld where it should be granted ; 
and one of the cases in which, in the 
modem European world, the sentiment 
of liberty is the strongest, is a case 
where, in my yiew, it is altogether mis- 
placed. A person should be free to do 
as he likes in his own concerns ; but he 
ought not to be free to do as he likes in 
acting for another, under the pretext 
that the affairs of the other are his own 
affairs. The State, while it respects 
the liberty of each in what specialF re- 
gards himself, is bound to maintain a 
vigilant control over his exercise of any 
power which it allows him to possess 
oyer others. This obligation is almost 
entirely disregarded in the case of the 
fomily relations, a case, in its direct 
influence on human happiness, more im- 
portant than all others taken together. 
The almost despotic power of hus- 
bands oyer wiyes needs not be enlarged 
upon here, because nothing more is 
needed for the complete removal of the 
evil, than that wives should have the 
same rights, and should receive the 
protection of law in the same manner, 
as all other persons ; and because, on 
this subject, the defenders of established 
ii\justice do not avail themselves of 
the plea of liberty, but stand forth 
openly as the champions of power. It 
is in the case of children, tnat misap- 
plied notions of liberty are a real ob- 
stacle to the fulfilment by the State of 
its duties. One would almost think 
that a man's children were supposed to 
oe literally, and not metaphoncally, a 
part of himself, so jealous is opinion of 
the smallest interference of law with 
his absolute and exclusive control over 
them ; more jealous than of almost any 
interference with his own freedom of 
action : so much less do the generality 
of mankind value liberty than power. 
Consider, for example, the case of edu- 
cation. Is it not almost a self-evident 
axiom, that the State should require 
and compel the education, up to a cer- 
tain standard, of every numan being 
who is bom its citizen? Yet who is 
there that is not afraid to recognise 
and assert this truth ? Hardly any one 
indeed will deny that it is one oi the 
■MMt saevad duties of the parents Cor 



as law and usage now stand, dv 
father), after summoning a human be* 
ing into the world, to give to that be- 
ing an education fitting him to perform 
his part well in life towards others and 
towards himself. But while this ii 
unanimously declared to be the fiither*i 
duty, scarcely anybody, in this ooob- 
tiy, will bear to hear of obliging him 
to perform it. Instead of his oeinp 
required to make any exertion or sacn- 
fice for securing education to his child, 
it is left to his choice to accept it or 
not when it is provided gratis! It 
still remains unrecognised, that to 
bring a child into existence without • 
fair prospect of beine able, not only to 
provide food for its bod^, but inskiH- 
tion and training for its mind, is • 
moral crime, both against the un&rtii- 
nate offspring and against society; and 
that if tne parent does not fulnl thk 
obligation, the State ought to see it 
fulfilled, at the charge, as &r as posii- 
ble^f the parent. 

Were the duty of enforcing nniyeml 
education once admitted, there would 
be an end to the difficulties about 
what th^State should teach, and how 
it should teach, which now oonvert the 
subject into a mere battle iBeld ibr' 
sects and parties, causing the time and 
labour which should have been spent 
in educating, to be wasted in quarrel* 
ling about education. If the ffoven- 
ment would make up its mina to re- 
quire for every child a good educatioo, 
it might save itself the trouble of pro* 
viding one. It might leave to parenti 
to obtain the eimcation where and 
how they pleased, and content itself 
with helping to pay the school fees of 
the poorer classes of children, and de- 
fraying the entire school expenses of 
those who have no one else to pay for 
them. The objections whi^ an 
urged with reason against State educi* 
tion, do not apply to the enforcement 
of education by the State, but to ibe 
State's taking upon itself to dired 
that education : which is a totaUj dS( 
ferent thing. That the whole or vxj 
large part of the education of the peo- 
ple should be in State hands, 1 go si 
tar as any one in deprecating. All 
that has been said of tho importanotol 



d 



I 



P< 



APPUCATIONa 



individtiAlity of cliaracter, and diversity 
in opinions and modes of conduct, in- 
folves, as of the same unspeakable im- 
portance, diversity of education. A 
general State education is a mere con- 
trivance for moulding people to be ex- 
actly like one anotner: and as the 
mould in which it casts them is that 
which pleases the predominant power 
in the government, whether this be a 
monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy, 
or the majority of the existing genera- 
tion ; in proportion as it is efficient and 
successful, it establishes a despotism 
over the mind, leading by natural ten- 
iency to one over the body. An edu- 
dation established and controlled by 
the State should only exist, if it exist 
at all, as one among many competing 
experiments, carried on for the purpose 
of example and stimulus, to keep the 
others up to a certain standard of ex- 
cellence. Unless, indeed, when society 
In general is in so backward a state 
that it could not or would not provide 
for itself any proper institutions of edu- 
cation, unless the ^vemment under- 
took the task : then, indeed, the govern- 
ment may, as the less of two great 
evils, take upon itself the busmess 
of schools and universities, as it may 
that of joint stock companies, when 
private enterprise, in a shape fitted for 
undertaking great works of industrv, 
does not exist in the country. But in 
general, if the country contains a suffi- 
cient number of persons qualified to 
provide education under government 
auspices, the same persons would be 
able and willing to give an equally 
good education on the voluntary prin- 
ciple, under the assurance of remune- 
ration afibrded by a law rendering edu- 
cation compulsory, combined with State 
aid to those unable to defray the ex- 
pense. 

The instrument for enforcing the 
law could be no other than public ex- 
aminations, extending to all children, 
and beginning at an early age. An 
age might be fixed at which every 
child must be examined, to ascertain 
if he (or she) is able to read. If a 
child proves unable, the father, unless 
lie has some sufficient ground of ex- 
^use, might be sulgected to a moderate 



fine, to be worked oat, if necessary, by 
his labour, and the child might be pat 
to school at his expense. Once in 
every year the examination should be 
renewed, with a gradually extending 
range of subjects, so as to make the 
universal acquisition,^and what is more, 
retention, of a certain minimum of 
general knowledge, virtually compul- 
sory. Beyond tnat minimum, there 
should be voluntary examinations o^ 
all subjects, at which all who come up 
to^ a certain standard of proficiency 
might claim a certificate. To prevent 
the State from exercising, throiigh these 
arrangements, an improper influence 
over opinion, the knowledge required 
for passing an examination (beyond 
the merely instrumental parts of 
knowledge, such as languages and 
their use) should, even in the higher 
classes of examinations, be confined to 
facts and positive science exclusively. 
The exammations on religion, politics, 
or other disputed topics, should not 
turn on the truth or falsehood of 
opinions, but on the matter of fact that 
such and such an opinion is held, on 
such grounds, by such authors, oi 
schools, or churches. Under this sys 
tem, the rising generation would be no 
worse off in regard to all disputed 
truths, than they are at present ; they 
would be brought up either churchmen 
or dissenters as they now are, the 
State merely taking care that they 
should be instructed churchmen, or in- 
structed dissenters. There would be 
nothing to hinder them from being 
taught religion, if their parents chose, 
at the same schools where they were 
taught other things. All attempts by 
the State to bias the conclusions of its 
citizens on disputed subjects, are evil ; 
but it may very properly offer to ascep* 
tain and certify tnat a person possesses 
the knowledge, requisite to make his 
conclusions, on any given subject, 
worth attending to. A student ot 
philosophy would be the better for 
oeing aole to stand an examination both 
in Locke and in Kant, whichever of the 
two he takes up with, or even if with 
neither: and there is no reasonabla 
objection to examining an atheist in 
the evidences of Chrisoanity, pnrvidad 



APPMCATIONa 



he is not required to profess a belief in 
them. The examinations, howefer, 
in the higher branches of knowledge 
should, I conceive, be entirely Tolun- 
tary. It would be giving too dangerous 
A power to governments, were they 
allowed to exclude any one from pro- 
fessions, even from the profession of 
teacher, for alleged deficiency of quali- 
fications : and I think, with Wilnelm 
▼on Humboldt, that degrees, or other 
Dublic certificates of scientific or pro- 
ressional acquirements, should be given 
to all who present themselves for 
examination, and stand the test ; but 
that such certificates should confer no 
advantage over competitors, other than 
the weight which may be attached to 
their testimony by puolic opinion. 

It is not in the matter of education 
only, that misplaced notions of liberty 
prevent moral obligations on the part 
of parents from bemg recognised, and 
legal obligations from being imposed, 
where there are the strongest grounds 
for the former always, and in many 
cases for the latter also. The fact 
itself, of causing the existence of a 
human bein^, is one of the most re- 
sponsible actions in the range of human 
hfe. To undertake this responsibility — 
to bestow a life which may be either 
a curse or a blessing — unless the being 
on whom it is to be bestowed will have 
at least the ordinary chances of a de- 
sirable existence, is a crime against 
that being. And in a country cither 
over-peopled, or threatened with being 
so, to produce children, beyond a very 
small number, with the effect of reduc- 
ing the reward of labour by their com- 
petition, is a serious ofience against all 
who live hy the remuneration of their 
labour. The laws which, in many 
countries on the Continent, forbid 
marriage unless the parties can show 
that they have the means of supi^rt- 
ing a family, do not exceed the legiti- 
mate powers of the State : and whether 
such laws be expedient or not (a ques- 
tion mainly dependent on local Circum- 
stances and feelings), they are not ob- 
iectionable as violations of liberty. Such 
laws are intcrforences of the State to 
i7nr>hibit a niiBchievous act — an act in- 
fWiooM to othen, which ou(;hi to be 



a subject of reprobatioii, and Mnid ■! 
stigma, even when it is not decnnd sm 
expedient to superadd legal pmud^ ti 
ment. Tet the current ideas of nber^, ' 
which bend so easily to real infirinfls- H 
ments of the fi;eedom of tiie iikl* Ik 
vidual in things which oonoem only ka 
himself would repel the attempt to ia 
put any restraint upon his inclinatioH (« 
when the consequence of their indid* 
gence is a life or lives of wretched- 
ness and depravity to the ofibprinft 
with manifold evils to those sufficieBW 
within reach to be in any waj afiecfeea 
bv their actions. When we omnpan ^ 
tne Strang respect of mankind ftr fr 
liberty, with their strange want of rs- ii 
spect for it, we might imagine tliafca (c 
man had an indispensable right to do 
harm to others, and no right at all to 
please himself without giving pain to 
any one. h 

I have reserved for the last phM |qi 
a large class of questions reanpeotiiig n'l 
the limits of government interferenoe^ iet 
which, though closely connected wi^ le^ 
the subject of this Essay, do noC^ n loc 
strictness, belong to it. These an the 
cases in which the reasons agaiait lioi 
interference do not turn upon tfai Vra 
principle of liberty : the question k kf 
not about restraining the actions d ^ec 
individuals, but about helping them: ' 
it is asked whether the govemmeil 
should do, or cause to be done, sodM' 
thine for their benefit, instead i 
leaving it to be done by themaehv^ 
individually or in voluntaiy comhii* |&c 
tion. 

The objections to government inle^ 
ference, when it is not such as to ia 
volve infringement of liberty, may fa 
of three kinds. 

The first is, when the thing to la 
done i« likely to be better done If 
individuals than by the ^vemmsBL 
Speaking generally, there is no one M Im 
fit to conduct any business, or to de* |tl 
termine how or by whom it shall bi pi 
conducted, as those who are persoi* v 
ally interested in it. This prmdplt 
condemns the interferences, onoe N 
common, of the legislature, or the 
officers of government, with the orfi> 
nary processcB of industry. But thii 
part of the subicct has liee* fuffifdendf 



11 
I1l< 
la 

IB 

i\ 

CO 



K 
tl 

r< 

» 

u 



APPLlCATlONa 



■nlaingied upon bjpoGtioal economiBtSi 
and is not particularly related to the 
principles of this Essay. 

The second objection is more nearly 
jallied to our subject. In many cases, 
though individuals may not do the 
particular thing so well, on the average, 
«8 the officers of govemmenti it is 
nevertheless desirable that it should be 
done by them, rather than by the 
government, as a means to their own 
mental education — a mode of strength" 
ening their active faculties, exercising 
their judgment, and giving them a 
fi&miliar knowledge of tne subjects with 
which thej are thus left to deal This 
is a principal, though not the sole, re- 
commendation of jury trial (in cases not 
political) ; of free and popular local and 
municipal institutions; ot'the conduct of 
industnal and philanthropic enterprises 
by voluntary associations. These are not 
qaestions of liberty, and are connected 
with that subject only by remote ten- 
dencies; but they are questions of 
development. It belongs to a different 
occasion from the present to dwell on 
these things as parts of national educa- 
tion ; as being, in truth, the peculiar 
training of a citizen, the practical part 
of the political education of a free 
pieople, taking them out of the narrow 
circle of personal and family selfishness, 
and accustoming them to the compr^ 
bension of ioint interests, the manage- 
Ktient of joint concerns — ^habituating 
tbem to act from public or semi>publio 
ikiotives, and ^de their conduct by 
aims which mute instead of isolating 
them from one another. Without these 
babits and powers, a free constitution 
can neither be worked nor preserved ; 
i^s is exemplified by the too^yften tran- 
^tory nature of political freedom in 
countries where it does not rest upon a 
sufficient basis of local liberties. The 
knanagement of purely local business by 
the localities, and of'^ the great enter- 
{^rises of industry by the union of those 
"^ho voluntarily supply the necuniair 
means, is further recommenaed by aU 
the advantages which have been set 
forth in this Essay as belonging to 
individuality of development, and di- 
versity of modes of action. Govern- 
ment operations tend to be eveiywhere 



aliko. With individuate and fulnn- 
tary awooiations, on the contrary, 
there are varied experiments, and 
endless diversity of experience. What 
the State can usefully do is to make 
itself a central depository, and active 
oiroulator and diffusely of the experi- 
ence resulting from many trials. Its 
business is to enaUe each experi- 
mentalist to benefit by the experiments 
of others ; instead of'^tolerating no ex- 
periments but its own. 

The third, and most cogent reason 
for restricting the interference of 
{^vemment, is the great evil of add- 
mg onneoessarilv to its power. Eveiy 
function superadded to those already 
exercised by the government, causes 
its influence over hopes and fears to be 
more widely diffiised, and converts, 
more and more, the active and am- 
bitious part of the public into hangers- 
on of the government, or of some party 
which aims at becoming the govern- 
ment. If the roads, the railways, the 
banks, the insurance offices, the great 
jointpfftock companies, the universities, 
and the public charities, were aXi of 
them branches of the government ; U, 
in addition, the municipal corporations 
and local boards, with all that now de- 
volves on them, became departments 
of the central administration; if the 
employes of all these different enter- 
prises were appointed and paid by the 
government, and looked to the govern- 
ment for every rise in life ; not all the 
freedom of the press and popular con- 
stitution of the legislature would make 
this or any other country free other- 
wise than in name. iLnd the evil 
would be greater, the more efficiently 
and scientifically the administrative 
machinery was constructed — the more 
skilful the arrangements for obtaining 
the best qualified hands and heads 
with whicn to work it. In England 
it has of late been proposed that all 
the members of the civil service of 
government should be selected by com- 
petitive examination, to obtain for those 
employments the most intelligent and 
instructed persons procurable; and 
much has been said and written for 
and against this j^roposal. One of the 
aiguments most insisted <^^V^^^s^ 



APPLIGATIONB. 



ponente, it tbat tiia oocupfttion of a 

SermsneiLt official Mrrant of th« State 
068 not hold oat nifficiexit prospects 
of emolument and importance to at- 
Iraot the hiehett talents, which wiU 
always he aUe to find a more inviting 
career in the professionSi or in the service 
•f companies and other public bodies. 
One would not have been surnrised if 
this argument had been used by the 
friends of the proposition, as an answer 
to its principal difficulty. Coming 
from the opponents it is strange 
enouph. What is urged as an objec- 
tion 18 the safety-valve of the proposed 
system. If indeed all the high talent 
of the conntrv could be drawn into 
the service of the government, a pro- 
posal tending to bring about that result 
' might well inspire uneasiness. - If 
ever J part of the business of society 
which required organized concert, or 
large and comprehensive views, were 
in the hands of the govenmient, and 
if government offices were universally 
filled by the ablest men, all the en- 
larged culture and practised intelli- 
gence in the country, except the purely 
speculative, would be concentrated in 
a numerous bureaucracy, to whom 
alone the rest of the communitv would 
look for all things : the multitude for 
direction and dictation in all they had 
to do ; the able and aspiring for per- 
sonal advancement. To be admitted 
into the ranks of this bureaucracy, and 
when admitted, to rise therein, would 
be the sole objects of ambition. Under 
this r6gime, not only is the outside 
public iU-qualified, for want of practical 
experience, to criticise or check the 
mode of operation of the bureaucracy, 
but even if the accidents of despotic 
or the natural working of popular in- 
stitutions occasionallv raise to the 
summit a ruler or rulers of reforming 
inclinations, no reform can be efiected 
which is contrary to the interest of the 
bureaucracy. Such is the melancholy 
audition of the Russian empire, as 
shown in the accounts of thostf who 
have had sufficient opportunity of ob- 
servation. The Czar uimsc If is power- 
less against the hurt aucratic body ; he. 
CMH send any one of them to Siberia, 
but he cannot govern without them, or 



I 



I s 

: J 

: t 



af;ainst their wiD. On vtm tons ol : ^ 
his thejf have a taoit veto^ by menJj I 5 
refraining frx>m carrying it into eflbet , ' 
In countries of more advanced dvili- ' ^ 
zation and of a more insnrreotioiisrj 
spirit, the fmblio, aooostomed to expect 
everything to be done for them by the 
State, or at least to do nothing for 
tiiemselves without asking firam the 
State not only leave to do it, but em i ' 
how it is to be don& naturally hold the 1 ^ 
State responsible for all evil wiiicli j8 
befals them, and when the evil exoeedi j ^ 
their amount of patience, they riie ,l! 
against the govenunent, and mab p 
what is calleda revolution; whereniMMi \^ 
somebody else, with or without legiti- : ^^ 
mate autnority from the nation, vaalti H^ 
into the seat, issues his orders to the ">< 
bureaucracy, and everything goes os 
much as it did before ; the bnreso- 
craoy being unchanged, and nobody 
else being capable of taking thnr 
place. 

A very different spectacle is s» 
hibited among a people aconstomed ti 
transact their own business. In Frsacfl^ 
a lai^e part of the people having beea 
engaged in military service, many d 
whom have held at least the rank d 
non-commissioned officers, there sn 
in every popular insurrection seven! 
persons competent to take tiio lesi 
and improvise some tolerable plan m 
action. What the French are is 
military affiiin, the Americans anil 
eveiT kind of civil business ; let thea 
be left without a government, evsiy 
body of Americans is able to impi^ 
vise one, and to carry on that or say 
other public business with a sufficieit 
amount of intelligence, order, and d»- 
cision. lliis is what every free peopis 
ought to be: and a people capslilfl 
of this is certain to be free ; it wiD 
never let itself be enslaved by tnj p 
man or body of men because these sis F 
able to seize and pull the reins of thi f > 
central administration. No boresBf. ^ 
cracy can hope to make such a peopb 
as this do or undergo anything thst 
they do not like, but where trerf^ 
thing is done through the buresO' 
cracy, nothing to which the buressr 
cracy is really adverse can be done si 
aU. The constitution of rodl) conn 



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APPLIOATIONS. 



tries ii an organiiAtion of the experi- 
ence and practical ability of the nation, 
into a disciplined body for the purpose 
of governing the rest; and the more 
perfect that organization ii in itself, 
the more successful in drawing to itself 
and educating for itself the persons of 
greatest capacity from all ranks of 
the commumty, the more complete is 
ihe bondage of all, the members of 
the bureaucracy included. For the 
governors are as much the slaves of 
their organization and discipline, as 
the governed are of the governors. A 
Chinese mandarin is as much the tool 
and creatuise of a despotism as the 
humblest cultivator. An individual 
Jesuit is to the utmost degree of abase- 
ment the slave of his order, though the 
order itself exists for the coUective 
power and importance of its members. 

It is not, also, to be forgotten, that 
the absorption of all the principal 
ability of the country into the govern- 
ing body is fatal, sooner or later, to the 
mental activity and progressiveness of 
tlie body itsell Banded together as 
they are- -working a system which, 
like all systems, necessarily proceeds 
in a great measure by fixed rules — the 
official body arr under the constant 
temptation of smking into indolent 
routme, or, if they now and then desert 
that mill-horse rcund, of rushing into 
dome half-examined crudity which has 
Btruck the fancy of some leading mem- 
ber of the corps : and the sole check to 
these closely allied, though seemingly 
opposite, tendencies, the only stimulus 
which can keep the ability of the body 
Itself up to a high standard, is liability 
to the watch^l criticism of equal 
Cibility outside the body. It is indis- 
{>ensable, therefore, that the means 
should exist, independemtly of the 
government, of forming such ability, 
cind furnishing it with the opportuni- 
ties and experience necessary for a 
^iorrect judgment of great practical 
mfi*airs. If we would possess perma- 
ftently a skilful and efficient b<>dy ot 
dictionaries — above all, a body able 
; to originate and willing to adopt im- 
r Drovements ; if we would not have our 
; bureaucracy degenerate into a pedanto- 
><;racy, this body must not engross aU 



the occupations which form and onlti* 
vate the faculties required for th« 
government of mankind. 

To determine the point at which 
evils, so formidable to numan freedom 
and advancement, begin, or rather at 
which they begin to predominate over 
the benents attending the collective 
application of the force of society, un- 
der its recognised chiefo, for the re- 
moval of the obstacles which stand in 
the way of its well-being ; to secure as 
much at the advantages of centralized 
power and intelligence, as can be had 
without turning into govemmental 
channels too great a proportion of the 
general activity — is one of the most 
difficult and complicated questions in 
the art of government. It is, in a great 
measure, a question of detail, in which 
many and various considerations must 
be kept in view, and no absolute rule 
can be laid down. But I believe that 
the practical principle in which safety 
resides, the ideal to be kept in view, 
the standard by which to test all ar- 
rangements intended for overcoming 
the difficulty, may be conveyed in these 
words: the greatest dissemination of 
power consistent with efficiency; but 
the greatest possible centralization of 
information, and difiiision of it from the 
centre. Thus, in municipal adminis- 
tration, there would be, as in the New 
England States, a very minute division 
among separate officers, chosen by the 
localities, of all business which is not 
better left to the persons directly inte- 
rested; but besides this, there would 
be, in each department of local affaire, 
a central superintendence, forming a 
branch of the general government. The 
organ of this superintendence would 
concentrate, as in a focus, the variety 
of information and experience derived 
from the conduct of that branch of 

Eublic business in all the localities, 
"om everything analogous which is 
done in foreign countries, and from the 
general principles of political science, 
lliis central organ should have a right 
to know all that is done, and its special 
duty should be that of making Uie 
knowledge acquired in one place avail- 
able for others. Emancipated from the 
petty pr^udicea and w^xt^m x^v«% ^ ^ 



68 



APPLICATIONa 






loealitj hj iti elerated poidtioii mod 
oomprehensiTe sphere of ooBervation, its 
advice would naturaUy carry mach au- 
thority; but its actual power as a per- 
manent institution, should, I conceive, 
be limited to compelling the local of- 
ficers to obey the laws laid down for 
their guidance. In all things not pro- 
vided for bv general rules, thoise officers 
should be left to their own judgment, 
mder responsibility to their oonstitu- 
enti. For the violation of rules, they 
should be responsible to law, and the 
rules themselves should be laid down 
bv the legislature; the central admi- 
nistrative authority onl^ watching over 
their executioiL and it they were not 
properly carried into efiect, appealing, 
aooonling to the nature of the case, to 
(he tribunals to enforce the law, or to 
the constituencies to dismiss the func- 
tionaries who had not executed it ao- 
oording to its spirit. Such, in its ge- 
neral conception, is the central super- 
intendence which the Poor Law Board 
ia intended to exercise over the admi- 
nistrators of the Poor Rate throughout 
the country. Whatever powers the 
Board exercises beyond this limit, were 
right and necessary in that peculiar 
case, for the cure of rooted habits of 
maladministration in matters deeply 
a£fectinff not the localities merely, but 
the whde community; since no locality 
has a mond right to make itself by 
mismanagement a nest of pauperism, 
necessarily overflowing into other loca- 
lities, and impairing the moral and 
physical condition of the whole labour- 
mg community. The powers of admi- 
nistrative coercion and subordinate le- 
gislation possessed by the Poor Law 



Board Qmt which, owin^ to tUd sCato 
of opinion on the subject, are verv 
scantily exercised by them), thoi^ 
perfectly justifiable in a case of first* 
rate national interest, would be wholly 
out of place in the superintendence m 
interests purely local But a oentnl 
organ of information and instruotioo 
for all the localities, would be equaD/ 
valuable in all departments of adminii> 
tration. A sovemment cannot havi 
too much of the kind of activity which 
does not impede, but aids and stimnlatei^ 
individual exertion and development. 
The mischief begins when, instead of 
calUng forth the activity and powers of | 
individuals and bodies, it substitutes iti j 
own activity for theirs; when, instead '| 
of informing, advising, and, upon occa- 
sion, denouncing, it makes them work 
in fetters, or bids them stand aside and 
does their work instead of them. The 
worth of a State, in the long run, ia 
the worth of the individuals composing 
it ; and a State which postpones the 
interests of their mental expansion and 
elevation, to a little more of adminii- 
trative skill, or of that semblance of it 
which practice gives, in the details of 
business; a State which dwarfe iti 
men, in order that the^ may be man 
docile instruments in its hands eveo 
for beneficial purposes — will find that 
with small men no great, thing cao 
really be accomplished; and that thf 
perfection of machinery to which it haa 
sacrificed everything, will in the end' 
avail it nothing, for want of the vital 
power which, in order that the mAchtM 
might work more smoothly, it has pie 
ferred to banish. 



THB BVP 



printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <5r» Co. f 
at Paul's Work, Ediubui-gh * 



i 



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